From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 1 04:00:15 1995
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Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 03:47:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Scott Cunningham
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To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Using a Program vs Moderation by hand
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Is anyone out there moderating and/or running a list by hand as apposed
to by a program like majordomo or listserv? Are there any advantages
other than the obvious human element? (ie moderation by content with
strategic canned replies, catching spams, avoiding technical dificulties
etc) Are there utilities to aid in this and if so what. Thanks in advance
- Scott Edward Cunningham [scottec@netcom.com] Seattle, Washington, USA -
From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 1 04:31:42 1995
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From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-reply-to: <9508010107.AA00194@zorch.loc3.tandem.com> (scott@loc3.tandem.com)
Subject: Re: Clueless mail from atext.com (Architext)?
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[Scott Mueller]
| I've been meaning to ask if anyone else got the first one, and
| what they thought about it. I've been trying to decide whether to
| round-file it or not.
I sent a request for a guest account so that I could try out their
search facility. They promise to provide basic searching for free to
the Internet community. I was not impressed by their so-called natural
language query engine, and got a lot of irrelevant hits (e.g.
"Norwegian music" produced anything related to Norway, none of it
about music). This might be due to a small information base.
Anyhow, I can't see how it hurts to let them do the archiving. If
someone finds out about Bel Canto and my mailing list through them,
it's a bonus.
Kjetil T.
From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 1 08:34:10 1995
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Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 11:06:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: Dave Sill
Message-Id: <199508011506.LAA01621@sws5.CTD.ORNL.GOV>
To: Michelle Dick
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: intentional mail loops
In-Reply-To: <199507300402.AA02444@bolero.rahul.net>
References:
<199507300402.AA02444@bolero.rahul.net>
X-Mailer: VM Version 5.87 (beta) with GNU Emacs 19.12 XEmacs Lucid of Wed Jun 21 1995 on morpheus (irix)
Organization: Oak Ridge National Lab, Oak Ridge, Tenn., USA
X-Face: "p~Q]mg{;e*}YR|)&Q/&Q\*~5UWfZX34;5M wrote:
>
>Unfortunately, some loops are just inherently uncatchable -- no
>unmoderated list in existance can perfectly discriminate between
>all looped mail with a different message-ID and legitmate replies.
Perhaps, but a few simple measures like checking for duplicate message
IDs, an X-Loop header, message body checksums, and site-based rate
limits (e.g., allow no more than N messages/hour from any host)
effectively take care of almost all accidental and intentional loops.
-Dave
From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 1 14:03:23 1995
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Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 13:38:30 -0700
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: Dave Del Torto
Subject: "Archietext" (I've got some good news, and some bad news...)
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THEIR VERSION:
>Architext is an exciting new media navigation company. We're
>developing a service designed to give users powerful ways to search
>and browse the content available over the internet.
>
>We're calling our service Bullseye!, and we'd like to include your
>mailing list(s) in the content that we index and archive. Other
>content will include web pages, newsgroups and thousands of editorial
>reviews. Basic searching and browsing will be free for all users; we
>also plan to offer profiling services for a nominal fee.
>
>Would it be acceptable for Architext to subscribe to your list(s) as a
>regular user and to keep archives of the list(s) content? This content
>will always be freely searchable by any user of the internet.
>
>In exchange for your permission to index your list(s), we'd like to
>offer you profiling services free of charge for one year. That way you
>will be notified about new web pages and news articles that match your
>profile. So you can stay abreast of new developments and make sure you
>have the most current information available as it comes out. Don't be
>the last on your block to get profiling from Bullseye!
>
>Architext was recently voted one of the top 25 cool technology
>companies by Fortune magazine (July 10 issue) and was featured on the
>cover of this March's Red Herring magazine. For more information on
>Architext, check out http://www.atext.com.
>
>Bullseye! will be opening soon (around August 15) and we hope that we
>can include your list(s) in this exciting service.
>
>If you agree to allow us to archive your list(s), please add us as the
>user list@atext.com (non-digest form, please). And drop us a line
>telling us which list(s) you've subscribed us to.
>
>Thanks for your time, and I look forward to hearing from you.
_MY VERSION_:
Archietext is an exciting new information scam company. It gives us
hard-ons just thinking about how cool and idea this is. What we're doing is
fishing around to see if we can throw up enough buzzwords to convince a few
hundred thousand hapless suckers to fork over a few bucks apiece and send
us their own list-content for free so we can sell it back to them. Cool,
huh?! All _we_ have to do is archive lots of stuff, stamp it with our
company name, maybe format the data a bit for some kludgey command-line
text searches and we're in bidness. Nothing to it.
We're calling our service Bullsh*t!, and we'd like to scavenge your mailing
list(s) for all the content that we'll have to index and archive so we can
pretend that we came up with. Other sources of content will include
people's personal web pages, whole batches of newsgroups that we discovered
we can copy off MIT's servers and thousands of editorial reviews that we
think we can snatch and grab without anyone much noticing until we have so
much money to pay a team of shark-lawyers that it won't matter anyway -
they can sue our "corporation" until they're blue in the face. Searching
and browsing on their own names and email addresses will be free at first
for all users, but we also (and here's the kicker that convinced our Mom's
to invest and buy us a couple of Suns) we also plan to scrounge around on
the net for a zillion email addresses that we will then "organize" and
resell to marketers who are still sitting on the fence about whether to
give us pots of money to "connect them to the information super-railroad."
Man, we get the greatest ideas getting stoned down in the garage, I tellya.
Fortunately, we wrote this one down!
So, uh, would it be acceptable for Archietext to copy all your list-files
and keep archives of the list(s) content? The headers of the content will
always be freely (and by that we mean that you'll still have "free will" in
the Existentialist sense) searchable by any user on the Internet (for a
nominal fee, of course).
In exchange for your permission to index your list(s), we'd like to offer
you some shiny beads and trinkets and the option to be a voyeur of other
people's data free of connection charges for one year (we'll still find a
way to charge you something by cooking up some "premium" services that take
us almost no time to diddle up with a PERL script). After that, we'll
charge rediculous amounts just to regurgitate your own data back to you and
everyone else, but we have to get this thing rolling first so we can pay
our Moms back for the machines and the frame relay line to our bedrooms.
We'll even pretend to notify about new web pages we find on Yahoo's index
while surfing on our new 384 f*ckin' megabit (cool! bet you don't have one
of THOSE in your bedroom!) line late at night. Oh yeah, and we'll
occasionally dredge up some free wire service articles from Eastern Europe
(where they can't do sh*t about us legally) that match your profile in our
flatfile database, but only if it doesn't take us too long, because we'll
be cutting and pasting a lot. We'll dump an impressive enough pile of K's
on your disk every day so it looks like you're actually getting something
valuable in case any accountants at your office actually bother to check.
Then, you can regurgitate all this crap back to your boss or your friends
or whoever and it'll make you look really "computer savvy," because as you
know, none of them really have a f*ckin' CLUE about any of this "computer"
stuff anyway, right? Hell, you might even get a _promotion_ (but if you
don't, don't come whining to _us_, 'cuz we'll be on the next plane to
Bermuda with your money)! Don't be the last bozo on your block to pretend
s/he's a super-cool "InfoNaut" by sucking data like a parasite from
Bullsh*t! and spooing it out to your friends after you strip our headers
off (hey, we don't give a damn, after all - turnabout _is_ fair play,
right?).
Archietext recently managed to bribe a big magazine - one that a bunch of
Sales & Marketing Weasels with big honkin' expense accounts leave lying
around open on their desks to impress their visitors - to give us a
high-profile phoney-baloney award with an impressive-sounding name. We cut
them in on the deal, see (but don't tell anyone!). Would you believe they
actually arm-twisted one of their artists to texturemap our logo onto a
geometric primitive way in the back of a recent cover image? It was rotated
in perspective so you can hardly tell what it is, but what the hell - now
we can use _their_ logos in _our_ promo stuff. Looks really good on our
resumes too, in case this whole thing falls flat and we have to get a real
job to pay our Moms back. If you need convincing that we can format HTML
documents (hey, two of us _did_ get CS degrees!) check out our Web page at:
http://www.assh*le.com/user/scam.html
Bullsh*t! will be opening as soon as we can clean up our rooms and figure
out how to hook these big-ass hard drives up to our new Suns (we figure by
August 15 we can bamboozle enough fools to start it up convincingly) and we
hope that we can soon start digitally ravaging your list(s) with our
exciting scam. Listen: you won't feel a thing, we _promise_. By the time
you realize you could get all this stuff for nothing by yourself if you
just read a few manuals and readme's like we did, it'll be too late, but
c'mon... it'll be fun!
If you agree to sell us your list (and all the names on it, but let's not
make too much of that until after you sign), please sneak us in as the user
"list@assh*le.com" so none of your users notice us. Make sure we're set to
CONCEAL and that we get everything in non-digest form so we don't spill a
drop of your blood. Speaking of "drops," drop us a line telling us which
list(s) you've subscribed us to, because we're too lazy to actually keep
track of this stuff ourselves. Besides, we're busy reading this really cool
Tony Robbins book and trying to work up the nerve to walk on hot coals next
weekend. Thanks.
Thanks for buying this line of crap like the sucker you really are, and...
uh-oh, Mom's calling us down to dinner, so we'd better go now...
Spiff Bung,
Bullsh*t! Technical Guy
(OK, so I _was_ an Art major, f*ck you anyway - YOU didn't think of this!)
From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 1 16:30:59 1995
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Date: Tue, 1 Aug 95 16:09:48 -0700
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: alan@znyx.com (Alan Deikman)
Subject: "Archietext" (I've got some good news, and some bad news...)
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Dave Del Torto wrote:
>THEIR VERSION:
>
>>Architext is an exciting new media navigation company.
[blather we have all seen omitted]
>_MY VERSION_:
[highly impressive, lengthy, and well written exercise in sustained
sarcasm omitted]
>Spiff Bung,
>Bullsh*t! Technical Guy
>(OK, so I _was_ an Art major, f*ck you anyway - YOU didn't think of this!)
I think Dave has earned my nomination for Internet Wannabe Basher of the
Month Award. Lord knows how sick I am of "there's money in the Internet
waiting for you" articles that keep showing up in the non-technical press.
Thanks Dave.
--------------------------------
Alan Deikman, ZNYX Corporation
alan@znyx.com
From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 1 19:30:25 1995
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From: dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin)
Subject: Re: "Archietext" (I've got some good news, and some bad news...)
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Tue, 1 Aug 1995 21:02:03 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To: <9508012309.AA01587@znyx.com> from "Alan Deikman" at Aug 1, 95 04:09:48 pm
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Alan Deikman commented about Dave Del Torto's evaluation of Architext:
| ... highly impressive, lengthy, and well written exercise in sustained
| sarcasm ...
Agreed! Good job, Dave.
| I think Dave has earned my nomination for Internet Wannabe Basher of the
| Month Award.
I second the nomination.
David W. Tamkin Box 3284 Skokie, Illinois 60076-6284
dattier@wwa.com MCI Mail: 426-1818 +1 312 714 5610
"When lutefisk is outlawed, only outlaws will have lutefisk."
-- bumper sticker I saw on a Nova at Oakton and Keystone
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 2 07:00:19 1995
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Date: Wed, 2 Aug 95 9:30:44 EDT
From: Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: "Archietext" (I've got some good news, and some bad news...)
Organization: Electric Armts Div, US Army ARDEC, Picatinny Arsenal, NJ
Message-ID: <9508020930.aa19653@fsm-1.pica.army.mil>
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David W. Tamkin wrote:
>Alan Deikman commented about Dave Del Torto's evaluation of Architext:
>
>| ... highly impressive, lengthy, and well written exercise in sustained
>| sarcasm ...
>
>Agreed! Good job, Dave.
>
>| I think Dave has earned my nomination for Internet Wannabe Basher of the
>| Month Award.
>
>I second the nomination.
I'll third it, but only if he comes over and cleans up all the coffee I just
spit all over my monitor and keyboard.
Tom Coradeschi, Info-LabVIEW List Maintainer
http://k-whiner.pica.army.mil/info-labview/info-labview.html
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 2 16:30:18 1995
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Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 16:25:36 -0800
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: Brent@GreatCircle.COM (Brent Chapman)
Subject: Architext (OK, maybe they're okay after all...)
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
FYI. -Brent
--- begin forwarded text
Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 17:05:02 -0400
From: bostic@bsdi.com (Keith Bostic)
To: /dev/null@python.bostic.com
Subject: Architext (OK, maybe they're okay after all...)
From: Chris Small
These people have a sense of humor. They offer a service that
generates MarketingSpeak (TM) at the click of a button. See
http://www.atext.com/cgi/aimarket.
Examples:
Using groundbreaking fuzzy logic techniques, Architext has built
multimedia engines for enterprise engines. Architext is a corporate
leader in offering parallel solutions in an enabling enterprise.
Architext offers corporate agents for client-server suites in a
mission-critical workplace.
Architext is a world-wide expert in providing multimedia turnkey
comprehensive products in a distributed enterprise for client-server
architectures. Architext delivers interoperable solutions in an
empowering environment for enabling technologies. Using revolutionary
fractal compression methods and groundbreaking case-based reasoning
protocols, Architext has designed intuitive architectures for online
solutions.
Using groundbreaking fractal compression techniques, Architext has
developed turnkey distributed solutions for high-speed engines.
Architext provides enterprise technologies for empowering products.
Architext is an industry expert in developing productivity-enhancing
agents in a multi-platform environment.
--- end forwarded text
--
Brent Chapman | Great Circle Associates | For Firewalls Tutorial info:
Brent@GreatCircle.COM | 1057 West Dana Street | Tutorial-Info@GreatCircle.COM
+1 415 962 0841 | Mountain View, CA 94041 | http://www.greatcircle.com
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 3 18:00:14 1995
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Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 17:24:15 -0700
From: Graham Spencer
Message-Id: <199508040024.RAA07055@mas.atext.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
CC: graham@atext.com
Subject: Architext
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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Hi. My name is Graham Spencer, and I work at Architext software. I'd
like to respond to some of the negative sentiment we've generated
amongst list managers and others. This email is rather long, but I've
tried to summarize the important points at the end.
First: yes, we really screwed up with our mailing to list managers.
I've explained this to a few of you in personal emails, but the basic
problem is this: we accidentally sent out some mailings from the wrong
account -- an anonymous account on a machine inside our firewall
(list@cochese.atext.com) rather than the account of our engineer who's
managing the project.
This was an unfortunate mistake, but I want to stress that we weren't
trying to "spam" anyone -- we sent mail to list administrators because
we had a specific request for each of them. No doubt many of you will
disagree, asserting that any mass-mailing is equivalent to spamming.
However, the fact is that we were simply doing what we thought was
polite, namely checking with list administrators before we subscribed
to (and began archiving) mailing lists. Some of you explicitly state
in your "Welcome to the list" messages that archiving is not
permitted, and of course we won't archive those lists. It may not have
occurred to others of you that anyone would want to archive your list,
so we wanted to ask before we did it.
In any event, let me reiterate that we were trying to be polite, and
through user-error we really screwed things up and were perceived as
being rude. We'll be much more careful in the future.
Let me respond to a few specific comments:
"Dave Del Torto" said, in an admittedly humorous satire:
> convince a few hundred thousand hapless suckers to fork over a
> few bucks apiece and send us their own list-content for free so
> we can sell it back to them.
I'm not sure why you think we're charging anyone (other than
advertisers). But just to be explicit, our search service will be free
to internet users, just like Yahoo and Lycos currently are. Like Yahoo
and Lycos, we hope to make money from advertising.
> thousands of editorial reviews that we think we can snatch and
> grab without anyone much noticing
The editorial that we're referring to is all original, written by our
editorial staff exclusively for Bullseye.
"Dave Del Torto" said, in a much earlier message:
> [...] you can easily see the slippery effect that casually
> entering into a fiduciary relationship with a company like
> Architext represents: if they get enough "locks" on lists, they
> could end up making even just posting cost you too.
I don't understand why you believe that we're trying to get a "lock"
on these lists. We're just trying to obtain permission to (non-
exclusively) archive some of the content and make it available for
searching. At the risk of being redundant, we have no intention of
"locking" your list, owning your list, preventing other people from
reading your list, charging people to post to your list, or charging
people to search over your list.
> If they offer it for free, or offer to share profits based on
> individual compensation (something I fancy would cost them more
> than it's worth to them) then that's a different scenario
> entirely and I might participate.
We do plan to offer it for free, and we hope that you'll agree to
participate.
> There are mechanisms already extant that let you search a
> list-archive, beginning with keeping a list-archive on your own
> disk like I do. Mine only takes up about 12 MB on my disk. No big
> deal.
There are many lists on the internet. Even experienced users may not
know how to find a list that deals with a topic that interests them.
And if they do find the list, their interest may be for the duration
of a day rather than the weeks required to become acquainted with a
mailing list. We want to index mailing lists so that 1) people won't
have to know which list contains topics that interest them and 2)
people won't have to keep 12MB archives of every list lying around on
their hard drive.
> (not just by pimping others). [...] and when well-meaning people
> are sandbagged by silver-tongued carpetnetters and carelessly
> hand over basic principles of authorship and free association for
> a bottle of patent medicine - then something is very, very wrong
> in Mudville.
Frankly, I resent your accusation that we're "pimping others" and that
we're "sandbagging" well-meaning internet users. *We* are well-meaning
internet users. All we're trying to do is to create a navigation
system that leads users to other content on the internet. Asserting
that our navigation service will destroy "basic principles of
authorship and free association" is simply absurd.
"Gess Shankar" asked (almost a month ago):
> It also that the content will be "freely searchable by any user
> of the Internet". I am not sure what is meant by "freely". Is the
> access to the text archive database is "free" as in no-cost or
> does it mean something else?
"Free" as in no-cost. Searching over the index and retrieving (the
entire text of) any of the articles in the index will always be free.
Eventually we plan to allow users to store persistent profiles which
we will probably charge for, but we will never charge for searching or
retrieval.
"Kjetil Torgrim Homme" said:
> Anyhow, I can't see how it hurts to let them do the archiving.
Thanks! I agree completely. =)
I apologize for the length of this email, but obviously we had a lot
of explaining to do. Let me summarize:
* We made a mistake with our mailing. We apologize.
* Despite our obvious error, we are a responsible company. Also, we
aren't "sharks" -- our intention is not to exploit the internet, but
rather to add value to it.
* We plan to offer our navigation service for free -- users will never
have to pay to search for articles, or to retrieve the entire
content of articles. (We may charge for persistent profiles in the
future.)
Please contact me if you have further questions. (In case anyone is
curious, I recently subscribed to the list-managers list.)
I hope that despite our recent mistake, you'll consider allowing us to
archive and index the contents of your mailing lists. Thanks for your
time,
--Graham
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Spencer Phone: 415.934.3613
graham@atext.com Fax: 415.934.3610
Architext Software Mail: 2700 Garcia, Mountain View 94043
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 3 19:30:02 1995
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Message-Id:
From: dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin)
Subject: Re: Architext
To: graham@atext.com (Graham Spencer)
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 20:58:54 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199508040024.RAA07055@mas.atext.com> from "Graham Spencer" at Aug 3, 95 05:24:15 pm
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Graham Spencer of Architext wrote,
| First: yes, we really screwed up with our mailing to list managers.
| I've explained this to a few of you in personal emails, but the basic
| problem is this: we accidentally sent out some mailings from the wrong
| account -- an anonymous account on a machine inside our firewall
| (list@cochese.atext.com) rather than the account of our engineer who's
| managing the project.
Both my lists got a letter with the subject "Apology from Architext" but
it, too, came from the "lists" ID. It was signed with the name Jeff Young,
but Young's .sig as well as his headers used the "lists" ID again. So, Mr.
Spencer, maybe it was a bad decision to write from lists@cochese.atext.com
(just as it was to misspell "Cochise"), but it didn't happen by accident.
Your company continued to write from it and even typed it into the .signa-
ture; that sounds pretty much like a decision to me. Wearing swim trunks
to church is a mistake, not an accident.
| In any event, let me reiterate that we were trying to be polite, and
| through user-error we really screwed things up and were perceived as
| being rude. We'll be much more careful in the future.
I was rough on Young in my response to the first one but a little gentler for
that reason when I turned them down from my other list. They do deserve some
points for stating their goals and asking first. Most people in their posi-
tion just grunt a "subscribe" command [which I always turn down] to try to
slither onto a list without prior contact to make arrangements and without
saying who is behind "mlists" or "lists".
David W. Tamkin Box 3284 Skokie, Illinois 60076-6284
dattier@wwa.com MCI Mail: 426-1818 +1 312 714 5610
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Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 19:32:48 -0700
From: Graham Spencer
Message-Id: <199508040232.TAA08603@mas.atext.com>
To: dattier@wwa.com
CC: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-reply-to: (dattier@wwa.com)
Subject: Re: Architext
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin) said:
> So, Mr. Spencer, maybe it was a bad decision to write from
> lists@cochese.atext.com (just as it was to misspell "Cochise"),
> but it didn't happen by accident. Your company continued to write
> from it and even typed it into the .signature; that sounds pretty
> much like a decision to me.
Please note that even though we sent the apologetic mail from the
wrong host, we did include a valid email address (list@atext.com,
*not* list@cochese.atext.com) in that apology. (In fact, we mentioned
list@atext.com three times, and never mentioned list@cochese.atext.com
in the body of the message.) Jeff simply didn't realize that sending
from cochese.atext.com was the source of the problem, so he repeated
the mistake in his second mailing.
It was definitely *not* a decision... To paraphrase Hanlon's razor:
"never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by a lack
of knowledge".
--Graham
PS: "cochese" is named after a fictional character; the spelling is
deliberate (unlike our mailing from list@cochese.atext.com).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Spencer Phone: 415.934.3613
graham@atext.com Fax: 415.934.3610
Architext Software Mail: 2700 Garcia, Mountain View 94043
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 3 20:30:20 1995
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From: dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin)
Subject: Re: Architext
To: graham@atext.com (Graham Spencer)
Date: Thu, 3 Aug 1995 22:14:43 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199508040232.TAA08603@mas.atext.com> from "Graham Spencer" at Aug 3, 95 07:32:48 pm
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I had written,
| > So, Mr. Spencer, maybe it was a bad decision to write from
| > list@cochese.atext.com (just as it was to misspell "Cochise"),
| > but it didn't happen by accident. Your company continued to write
| > from it and even typed it into the .signature; that sounds pretty
| > much like a decision to me.
Graham Spencer responded,
| Please note that even though we sent the apologetic mail from the
| wrong host, we did include a valid email address (list@atext.com,
| *not* list@cochese.atext.com) in that apology. (In fact, we mentioned
| list@atext.com three times,
... and Jeff Young's or any other real person's address zero times ...
| and never mentioned list@cochese.atext.com
| in the body of the message.) Jeff simply didn't realize that sending
| from cochese.atext.com was the source of the problem, so he repeated
| the mistake in his second mailing.
We've a misunderstanding here, Mr. Spencer. There are two very separable
issues: the host in the return address and the only username supplied for
responses. I thought that your earlier apology was for the latter; you've
now explained that it was for the former. You appear to stand by the latter.
What I said the first time referred to Mr. Young's withholding any contact
information other than the "list" address: that part was a decision, not
an accident. The .signature address was list@atext.com and not
list@cochese.atext.com, but it still was list@.
| It was definitely *not* a decision...
Including "cochese" may have been fortuity, but using "list" was design, and
so was omitting any address that reaches a person instead of a daemon.
| To paraphrase Hanlon's razor: "never attribute to malice what can
| adequately be explained by a lack of knowledge".
Right; I said that it was a *bad* decision, not that it was a *mean* one.
| PS: "cochese" is named after a fictional character; the spelling is
| deliberate (unlike our mailing from list@cochese.atext.com).
Let me guess: this fictional character admired Cochise but couldn't spell?
David W. Tamkin Box 3284 Skokie, Illinois 60076-6284
dattier@wwa.com MCI Mail: 426-1818 +1 312 714 5610
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 4 14:03:49 1995
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From: kirmis@hermes3.sps.mot.com (Deirdre Kirmis)
Message-Id: <9508042050.AA20788@hermes3>
Subject: Digested Lists
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 13:50:53 -0700 (MST)
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I am trying to create a digested version of a list in my Majordomo
list server. Haven't been able to find any good documentation on
how to successfully configure it.
My list homedir is /fs/hermes3/majordomo/lists.
My archives homedir is /fs/hermes3/majordomo/archives.
My digest homedir is /fs/hermes3/majordomo/digests.
How do I get a digested list to be sent out daily to the list
members?
ssilist is the list that the users subscribe/send to.
ssilist-digest is the list where all the messages are digested (i think).
When people send to the list, I would like the list to store the messages
and send them out at the end of the day.
Do I need two separate lists to accomplish this?
If there is only one subscriber to ssilist (ie: the owner of the list)
and everyone else is subscribed to ssilist-digest, would all messages sent
to ssilist be digested into ssilist-digest based upon my example aliases
file below?
If that is the case, then how do I get the ssilist-digest to send the
messages out only once per day? Can you please give me an example of
a crontab entry (if it uses cron)?
Is there any good documentation on digests (Majordomo digests for dummies)?
Here is an example of my current aliases file:
########################################################################
# SSILIST List: SSILIST Distribution List
# Creater/Maintainer: Deirdre Kirmis
# Creation Date: 07/17/1995
#
ssilist:"|/fs/hermes3/majordomo/wrapper resend -l ssilist -h hermes3.sps.mot.com ssilist-outgoing"
ssilist-digest:ssilist
ssilist-outgoing::include:/fs/hermes3/majordomo/lists/ssilist,"|/fs/hermes3/majordomo/wrapper digest -r -C -l ssilist-digest ssilist-digest-outgoing","|/fs/hermes3/majordomo/wrapper archive2.pl -f /fs/hermes3/majordomo/archives/ssilist/ssilist.archive -a -m"
ssilist-digest-outgoing:owner-ssilist
ssilist-digest-approval:ssilist-owner
#owner-ssilist: Larry_McCarthy-LLM001@email
owner-ssilist: kirmis@hermes3
ssilist-owner: owner-ssilist
ssilist-approval: owner-ssilist
########################################################################
This is my Majordomo.cf file:
########################################################################
# $whereami -- What machine am I running on?
$whereami = "hermes3.sps.mot.com";
# $whoami -- Who do users send requests to me as?
$whoami = "listbot@$whereami";
# $whoami_owner -- Who is the owner of the above, in case of problems?
$whoami_owner = "listbot-owner@$whereami";
# $homedir -- Where can I find my extra .pl files, like majordomo.pl?
# the environment variable HOME is set by the wrapper
if ( defined $ENV{"HOME"}) {
$homedir = $ENV{"HOME"};
} else {
$homedir = "/fs/hermes3/majordomo";
}
# $listdir -- Where are the mailing lists?
$listdir = "$homedir/lists";
# $digest_work_dir -- the parent directory for digest's queue area
# Each list must have a subdirectory under this directory in order for
# digest to work. E.G. The bblisa list would use:
# /usr/local/mail/digest/bblisa
# as its directory.
$digest_work_dir = "$homedir/digests";
# $log -- Where do I write my log?
$log = "$homedir/majordomo.log";
# $mailer -- What program and args do I use to send mail?
# The variable $to can be interpolated into this command line,
# however the $to variable is provided by the person sending mail,
# and much mischief can be had by playing with this variable.
# Use $to with care.
$mailer = "/usr/lib/sendmail -f\$sender -t";
# Majordomo will look for "get" and "index" files related to $list in
# directory "$filedir/$list$filedir_suffix", so set $filedir and
# $filedir_suffix appropriately. For instance, to look in
# /usr/local/mail/files/$list, use:
# $filedir = "/usr/local/mail/files";
# $filedir_suffix = ""; # empty string
# or to look in $listdir/$list.archive, use:
# $filedir = "$listdir";
# $filedir_suffix = ".archive";
$filedir = "$homedir/archives";
$filedir_suffix = ".archive";
# What command should I use to process an "index" request?
$index_command = "/bin/ls -lRL";
# If you want to use FTPMAIL, rather than local access, for file transfer
# and access, define the following:
# $ftpmail_address = "ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com";
# $ftpmail_location = "FTP.$whereami";
# if you want the subject of the request to be included as part of the
# subject of the reply (useful when automatically testing, or submitting
# multiple command sets), set $return_subject to 1.
$return_subject = 1;
# If you are using majordomo at the -request address, set the
# following variable to 1. This affects the welcome message that is
# sent to a new subscriber as well as the help text that is generated.
$majordomo_request = 0;
# Set the umask for the process. Used to set default file status for
# config file.
umask(007);
# the safe locations for archive directories. This should be defined as
# a series of root anchored directory paths as will be used as prefixes
# to the file names specified to the archive2.pl script.
@archive_dirs = ( "$homedir/archives/test", "$homedir/archives/ssilist" );
# Set this to 1 if you want to use the experimental mechanism for allowing
# / in user names. People with lots of X.400 addresses on their lists or
# HP mail whatever may want to set this. However use it at your own risk.
$analyze_slash_in_address = 0;
#
# these tune the experimental matching that is done for addresses with / in
# them. If you haven't turned on the experimental analyze_slash_in_address
# they are ignored. See the source for full explanation of these variables.
#
# if set to 1 ignore the requirement that addresses have an @ sign in the
# address component after the last /.
$no_x400at=0;
# if set to 1 do not look for "/c=" and "/ad=" or "/am=" in the address.
# X.400 seems to require these components.
$no_true_x400=0;
1;
Thanks for any information anyone can give me.
Deirdre Kirmis
# $Header: /sources/cvsrepos/majordomo/sample.cf,v 1.4.2.1.2.2 1995/01/07 17:35:03 rouilj Exp $
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 4 16:00:15 1995
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Digested Lists
From: "Franklin R. Jones"
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 1995 16:28:30 -0600
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
=>I am trying to create a digested version of a list in my Majordomo
=>list server. Haven't been able to find any good documentation on
=>how to successfully configure it.
Yeah, the docs are a bit thin...
=>Do I need two separate lists to accomplish this?
yes, sort of more line 2.5. the following is the full aliases
for a digested list: in this case `fjtest'
#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*# aliases for list fjtest #*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#
fjtest: |//wrapper resend -l fjtest -h fjtest-outgoing
owner-fjtest: majordomo-owner
fjtest-request: "|//wrapper request-answer fjtest
fjtest-approval: majordomo-owner
fjtest-digest: fjtest
fjtest-outgoing: :include://lists/fjtest, "| //wrapper digest -r -C -l fjtest-digest fjtest-digest-outgoing",
fjtest-digest-outgoing: :include:/lists/fjtest-digest
owner-fjtest-outgoing: owner-fjtest
owner-fjtest-digest: owner-fjtest
owner-fjtest-digest-outgoing: owner-fjtest
fjtest-digest-request: "|/wrapper request-anwser fjtest-digest"
fjtest-digest-approval: fjtest-approval
fjtest-request: "|/wrapper majordomo -l fjtest"
#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*# end of aliases for list fjtest #*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#
the key is the resend to -outgoing which in turn calls wrapper
to run digest. the digest itself is sent by cron with a simple email
to the listserver such as :
0 17 * * * echo "mkdigest fjtest-digest " | mail majordomo@
I've replaced the paths I use with
and my domain name with so if you replace those with
your site specfic stuff and fjtest with your list name you'll be close.
minimum files needed are:
fjtest
fjtest-digest
fjtest-digest.info
fjtest-digest.passwd
fjtest.info
fjtest.passwd
hope this helps some if you have specfic questions, give them a go.
fj..
'~`^`'-,._.,-'~|,._.,-'~^~`~'-,._.,-'~`~'-,._.,-'~`~'-,._.,-,._.,-'~`~'-,._
Franklin R. Jones Unix OS & Network Specialist
Paranet, Inc.
consultant to: USWest Service Assurance 7900 E. Union Ave,Suite 1100
frjones@sa.mnet.uswest.com Denver, Colorado 80237
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 4 19:30:14 1995
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To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: merchant@anuxv.att.com (s.merchant)
Original-To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: 4 Aug 1995 18:26 EDT
Subject: re: Architext
In-Reply-To: <199508042104.OAA09325@miles.greatcircle.com>
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Dave Del Torto says:
>THEIR VERSION: ...
>_MY VERSION_: ...
[Lots of reactionary bashing deleted (I could have found it
funnier if weren't so mean-spirited).]
If someone is archiving my list (something I don't have the disk space
for myself), and is willing to do it for free and provide free search
and indexing services, that's a benefit as far as I'm concerned. Even
if they wanted to charge users for their services, that would probably
be OK with me (although I would then want to understand the copyright
implications); presumably, if someone is willing to pay for it, it's a
favourable cost/benefit ratio for that person. Information flows
sufficiently freely on the Internet, including information about
information providers, that no one would survive very long trying to
charge prices that were out of line with what's available free or at a
much more nominal cost. It's absurd to cook up conspiracy theories that
this person wants to monopolize a certain segment of otherwise-public
information on the Internet!
Having said this, though, I yet *did* have a problem with Architext's
request, and did not add them to my lists, largely because they simply
did not seem to have their act together. To wit:
1. They had a single address for *everything* !!?!! My questions to
them asking for clarification on some things (some of which Graham
Spencer subsequently answered in his message to this list) was going
to be completely buried in Gigabytes of list message ALL going to
that same address! Perhaps their fuzzy logic fractal-based software
straightens it all out, but on the surface it certainly looked like
it was being run by amateurs!
2. I did not get a reply to my query (undoubtedly because of 1) that
might have reassured me.
3. The misdirected e-mail didn't help establish credibility.
4. The excessive marketing hype was clearly the work of people unfamiliar
with the Internet, otherwise they would have known that this sort
of copy is treated pretty contemptuously on the Internet (they
know now).
So they need to establish credibility (which is a little like trying to
re-establish virginity ...) and also anticipate and address the problems
and questions that listowners might have with their proposal/request.
They *were* courteous enough to ask list-owners' permission--my lists
are open subscription and they could easily have subscribed
themselves--which is a plus point in their favour. If they succeed in
living up to providing the services they are claiming, it would be a
nice service for some listowners.
Shahrukh Merchant
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 4 21:00:00 1995
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From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
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[Shahrukh Merchant]
| 1. They had a single address for *everything* !!?!! [...] Perhaps
| their fuzzy logic fractal-based software straightens it all
| out, but on the surface it certainly looked like it was being
| run by amateurs!
Sorting by the To/Cc headers isn't exactly rocket science. Of course,
some terribly broken lists use the individual recipient's address in
the To-header, and I suspect Architext must unsubscribe to these and
some other strange systems.
Kjetil T.
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 4 21:30:21 1995
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Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 21:13:25 -0700
To: Graham Spencer
From: Dave Del Torto
Subject: Jughead Replies (Was: Re: Architext)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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At 5:24 pm 8/3/95, Graham Spencer wrote:
>Let me respond to a few specific comments:
>"Dave Del Torto" said, in an admittedly humorous satire:
Jeeze, it's gettin' so ya can't even _satirize_ folks these days without
them becoming upset. ")
Anyway, I'm truly glad you saw some jocularity in it, because it was meant
mostly in fun. It speaks well of you that you have such an advanced sense
of humor (and, I might add, of your Mom, who is/was undoubtedly a Lady of
great couth, judging by your civil tone). Remember: it _was_ satire.
Really. I merely deliberately exaggerated various features of your chap's
post to produce a (grotesque) comic effect: I'm not trying to irrationally
pick on you guys specifically. Well, not much.
Actually, I'm more against the _idea_ of what you and other services like
yours represent. I wrote in an earlier post about the similarity I see
between what you're doing and what West Publications does by indexing the
text of all legal procedings in the US and then claiming the right to sell
it all back to the citizens. In other words, I have philosophical
objections to your purpose. There are significant differences, since your
materials are available on the net, but you and I both know that once
mailing lists have sent their stuff, past posts are rarely archived unless
the host/maintainer has lots of money for HD space, so someday, you will
have people by the short and curlies if they want historical data.
So, call me an irascible carbunc-er-curmudgeon if you will, but I'm just
too disestablishmentarian to properly appreciate your service right now. If
it turns out I'm wrong, I _promise_ I'll happily admit it, but I've been in
this industry 15 years now, and that's long enough to believe that there's
a glimmer of truth to my satire. Personally, I'd prefer it if you spent
your time cooking up a way for everyone on the net to build
widely-disseminated infobases, rather than attempting to control a
centralized repository "service." I believe in things like the Web that
support decentralized information connected by hyperlinks. That, imho,
along with organic memory and optical computers is the Net of the Future.
Hey, maybe you *do* have a nifty idea. Maybe lots of people *will* sign up.
Maybe it *will* be free. Maybe higher primates *will* achieve flight and
rocket from my colon - who knows? And maybe someday, after it becomes clear
to me just where the flaws in your arguments are that allow you to provide
this service for "free," you'll finally come clean about just what it is
that you're trying to do and I'll be so impressed by your candor that I'll
interested in checking it out. For now, however, consider any list I manage
to be off-limits to your indices and archives as explicitly stated in their
Welcome messages.
dave
________________________________________________________________________
"Arguing with an engineer is like mud-wrestling with a pig.
After a while, you figure out that the pig likes it." - Michael Sattler
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 4 22:00:50 1995
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Subject: Needed: list server
From: WILLIAM MILLER
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Message-Id: <0089252.034915.9978.0001@trader.com>
Date: Fri, 04 Aug 1995 23:56:52
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I have a list of hundreds of subscribers who have expressed interest in my
mailing list (distribution list) pertaining to collectors and collectibles.
I am interested in getting a site to run my list with their listserver,
etc.
I would like suggestions regarding no- or low-cost sites which might carry
my list. Thanks. Private replies preferred, but I have recently subscribed.
Thanks very much.
eagle@trader.com William (Ed) Miller, ASEET Clayton, IN USA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Constitution : Void Where Prohibited By Law
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From: Stephanie da Silva
Message-Id: <199508050536.AAA12041@bonkers.taronga.com>
Subject: Jughead Replies (Was: Re: Architext)
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 00:36:51 -0500 (CDT)
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The eloquent Dave Del Torto writes:
> but you and I both know that once
> mailing lists have sent their stuff, past posts are rarely archived unless
> the host/maintainer has lots of money for HD space,
Like me?
I have close to 4 years of my mailing list archived, don't know how much
it is currently but it was over 20 megabytes worth last time I looked.
Being that it's tucked away in an obscure corner of the Web, it's not
widely accessible, but it's there if someone happens to stumble over it.
But it's something on the back of my mind, what if someone finds it and
the other stuff I have and snarf it all for their own purposes? It's true
that enough people have tried to make money off the PAML so I know it's
a possibility.
But what about Archietext? What if I say yeah, archive my list but then
change my mind later and ask them to remove it. Would they? Or is there
some agreement that once they have it, it's theirs forever? Or are they
even organized enough to identify my list traffic to where they could find
it and delete it off their system?
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 5 03:00:00 1995
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Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 02:31:07 -0700
From: Graham Spencer
Message-Id: <199508050931.CAA12698@mas.atext.com>
To: arielle@bonkers.taronga.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-reply-to: <199508050536.AAA12041@bonkers.taronga.com> (message from Stephanie da Silva on Sat, 5 Aug 1995 00:36:51 -0500 (CDT))
Subject: Re: Jughead Replies (Was: Re: Architext)
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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Stephanie da Silva asked:
> What if I say yeah, archive my list but then change my mind later
> and ask them to remove it. Would they? Or is there some agreement
> that once they have it, it's theirs forever?
Yes, we will delete your list from our archives upon request. We don't
expect to have any permanent rights to archiving it.
> Or are they even organized enough to identify my list traffic to
> where they could find it and delete it off their system?
All the mail we receive is sorted by source; it would be simple for us
to delete all the articles from a particular list.
I've added this question and answer to the info page at
http://www.atext.com/archiving-lists.html.
--Graham
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Spencer Phone: 415.934.3613
graham@atext.com Fax: 415.934.3610
Architext Software Mail: 2700 Garcia, Mountain View 94043
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 5 03:03:40 1995
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Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 02:23:00 -0700
From: Graham Spencer
Message-Id: <199508050923.CAA12638@mas.atext.com>
To: merchant@anuxv.att.com, List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
CC: graham@atext.com
In-reply-to: <9508042315.AA16416@ig1.att.att.com> (merchant@anuxv.att.com)
Subject: re: Architext
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merchant@anuxv.att.com (s.merchant) said:
> 1. They had a single address for *everything* !!?!!
Yes, I agree that this looked unprofessional. We should have specified
a separate address for the human in charge of the project. However, as
Kjetil Torgrim Homme suggested in a later
message, we do have software set up to sort email by sender. List
content is diverted to individual archives, and non-list content is
inspected separately by a human. So your email was most likely
received as expected.
> 2. I did not get a reply to my query (undoubtedly because of 1) that
> might have reassured me.
I believe our delay in responding was more due to the bulk of mail
from list administrators rather than from the lists themselves.
> 4. The excessive marketing hype was clearly the work of people
> unfamiliar with the Internet, otherwise they would have known
> that this sort of copy is treated pretty contemptuously on the
> Internet (they know now).
This was another unfortunate aspect of our mailing; the letter was
obviously written with the wrong tone for this audience. FWIW -- and
this may not do much to re-establish credibility, but I'll mention it
anyway -- most of us at Architext have been on the net for five or six
years.
> So they need to establish credibility (which is a little like
> trying to re-establish virginity ...) and also anticipate and
> address the problems and questions that listowners might have
> with their proposal/request.
To that end, I'm happy to continue answering questions in this forum,
or via private email. I've also created a web page,
http://www.atext.com/archiving-lists.html
which tries to answer some of the questions I've already received. I
can mail this page to anyone who doesn't have web access.
I'd like to do whatever I can to make sure that from now on we're
perceived as competent and responsible. (Which we really are.)
--Graham
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Spencer Phone: 415.934.3613
graham@atext.com Fax: 415.934.3610
Architext Software Mail: 2700 Garcia, Mountain View 94043
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 5 12:30:08 1995
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Cc: graham@atext.com
Subject: re: Architext
From: Gess Shankar
Reply-To: gess@knex.mind.org (Gess Shankar)
Message-ID:
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 95 13:39:09 EST
In-Reply-To: <199508050923.CAA12638@mas.atext.com>
Organization: |<><>| Knowledge Exchange, GA, USA |<><>|
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Graham Spencer writes:
>
> merchant@anuxv.att.com (s.merchant) said:
>
> > 1. They had a single address for *everything* !!?!!
>
> Yes, I agree that this looked unprofessional. We should have specified
> a separate address for the human in charge of the project. However, as
Well, you guys still seem to be at it, expecting responses to hosts
which cannot be accessed at your site. A recent example at an attempt
to get subscription information from one of my lists....When the server
sent the information blurb, guess what?
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id DAA10713; Sat, 5 Aug 1995 03:33:38 -0400
----- The following addresses had delivery problems -----
(unrecoverable error)
----- Transcript of session follows -----
... Deferred: No route to host
-------------------------------------------------------------------
GeSS
--
Gess Shankar |<><>|Internet: gess@knex.mind.ORG |<><>|
Knowledge Exchange|<><>|:::::::::::::::::::::::::|<><>|
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Cc: graham@atext.com
Subject: re: Architext
From: Gess Shankar
Reply-To: gess@knex.mind.org (Gess Shankar)
Message-ID:
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 95 13:39:09 EST
In-Reply-To: <199508050923.CAA12638@mas.atext.com>
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\9MN'KEJU.IT[)^+9X#W_9C&3?O(&=^!87V-YA3OX;_XX[1LZ.-*]5UO@YS;_`I_6RP#>,L]HWCAK\5C^"[XJ#,RY76]7^N+&)&HO#?$$W^[OK[S[JV_T
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M@_Y\F]UGFI0LI9C.GN72\P"@;Y#+ISR`YC9SN\6SE)>K@I*GC%/F**\I_U3"
MU28$E^/5V>I+ZCG*0NW4&FG-`"1;:[VT/@"2H[6EVA[MLO:U=D_3=9\^7)\%
M,#E7+Z1,J\7FQJY6B]M2Q_(,@.0^RTTHP/`Y0;'BXZ703,^1+L1?.OXWJ'1>N7^
M`)I/.;VN$%>H*Y:RKM9W-77U)4?]:-=.REU]S76+%E,ZW%$`F=L`++]VWW=K
M'MWC,B,P,1]?HIG)V@^`.<6S"B!39.$S`###O!6\#;R#`3A15R[T/DL^E2,P
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MW)$/N+LMFD_?)F45ZVH1UIQQV-)?(1(Y!XZJR@6B]49
M]4.[K*2\P44[\HNV%;3
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 5 15:02:43 1995
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From: dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin)
Subject: Re: Architext
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 16:34:24 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To: <199508050923.CAA12638@mas.atext.com> from "Graham Spencer" at Aug 5, 95 02:23:00 am
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Graham Spencer still tries valiantly to answer his company's critics,
including Shahrukh Merchant, who had written,
| > 2. I did not get a reply to my query (undoubtedly because of 1) that
| > might have reassured me.
And Spencer replied,
| I believe our delay in responding was more due to the bulk of mail
| from list administrators rather than from the lists themselves.
I believe that the delay may be forever, because both of Jeff Young's
mailings, as we discussed before, bore the unrepliable return address
"list@cochese.atext.com" in their headers, and the reader would have had
to know -- as Spencer told us later -- to change it to "list@atext.com" as
given in the text of Young's letters. If only Jeff Young understood about
Reply-To: headers.
I received Young's second version at both my lists and replied from each.
One has already bounced; one still has the transports plugging away.
My decision has been not to bother writing again though I now know the
working site name. Besides, who wants to send text that needs to be read
by human eyes to something called "List Boy" instead of a person?
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 5 16:00:02 1995
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Date: Sat, 5 Aug 1995 15:34:35 -0700
From: Graham Spencer
Message-Id: <199508052234.PAA16024@mas.atext.com>
To: gess@knex.mind.org
CC: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM, graham@atext.com
In-reply-to: (message from Gess Shankar on Sat, 05 Aug 95 13:39:09 EST)
Subject: re: Architext
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Gess Shankar said:
> Well, you guys still seem to be at it, expecting responses to
> hosts which cannot be accessed at your site. A recent example at
> an attempt to get subscription information from one of my
> lists....When the server sent the information blurb, guess what?
No, we stopped all of our mailings as soon as we started to see
problems. We haven't mailed anything to any list managers in several
days.
> Received: from toast.eushc.org (toast.eushc.org [163.246.96.100])
> by sunshine.eushc.org (8.6.10/EUSHC) with ESMTP
> id DAA10713; Sat, 5 Aug 1995 03:33:38 -0400
> ----- The following addresses had delivery problems -----
> (unrecoverable error)
> ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> ... Deferred: No route to host
My knowledge of the internals of sendmail is minimal, but is it
possible that this message was waiting in the queue for a few days,
trying to find a route, until sendmail gave up and notified you?
I guess the other possibility is that our internal machine queued the
request for later delivery, and just recently mailed it to you.
In any event, I assure you that we haven't sent out any new messages
after our batch of "Apology from Architext" emails.
--Graham
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Spencer Phone: 415.934.3613
graham@atext.com Fax: 415.934.3610
Architext Software Mail: 2700 Garcia, Mountain View 94043
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 6 00:30:03 1995
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for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: re: Architext
From: Gess Shankar
Reply-To: gess@knex.mind.org (Gess Shankar)
Message-ID:
Date: Sat, 05 Aug 95 23:21:08 EST
In-Reply-To:
Organization: |<><>| Knowledge Exchange, GA, USA |<><>|
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Gess Shankar writes:
> \9MN'KEJU.IT[)^+9X# MZ_Z4_.-CI]SYL'('J!M?E//EK[[#Y,+#9I.O[1D2.)/A]N MI"N<>W_9C&3?O(&=^!87V-YA3OX;_XX[1LZ M+[MY92<>|Internet: gess@knex.mind.ORG |<><>|
Knowledge Exchange|<><>|:::::::::::::::::::::::::|<><>|
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 6 12:12:35 1995
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Date: Sun, 06 Aug 1995 15:41:50 GMT
From: John Hein
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Is there anybody else on here using this software?
--
[ John Hein GM1YME | ]
[ johndunedin@drink.demon.co.uk | Phaggots do it on the phone! ]
[ johndunedin@cix.compulink.co.uk| Sine Pretio Loquimini Omnibus ]
[ Telephone: +44 131 558 1279 | ]
[ TeleFax: +44 131 558 1262 | 38 B5/6 f+ t- w+ d g++ k- s++! r-- p ]
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From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 6 12:14:55 1995
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From: srb@cuci.nl (Stephen R. van den Berg)
Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 13:02:47 +0200
In-Reply-To: Graham Spencer's message as of 1995 Aug 5 Sat 15:34.
<199508052234.PAA16024@mas.atext.com>
To: Graham Spencer
Subject: re: Architext
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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Graham Spencer wrote:
> > ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> > ... Deferred: No route to host
>My knowledge of the internals of sendmail is minimal, but is it
It's nice to be so honest; but wouldn't you say that having more than
minimal knowledge about sendmail would be a first requirement for any
firm that wants to subscribe to and archive thousands of mailinglists?
Or are there other people at architext that are experts at sendmail
and mailinglist manager software?
--
Sincerely, srb@cuci.nl
Stephen R. van den Berg (AKA BuGless).
Time is nature's way of making sure everything doesn't happen at once.
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 6 18:30:08 1995
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Date: Sun, 6 Aug 1995 16:48:45 -0700
From: Graham Spencer
Message-Id: <199508062348.QAA24542@mas.atext.com>
To: srb@cuci.nl
CC: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-reply-to: <199508061102.NAA15572@hera.cuci.nl> (srb@cuci.nl)
Subject: re: Architext
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I wrote:
> My knowledge of the internals of sendmail is minimal [...]
to which srb@cuci.nl (Stephen R. van den Berg) replied:
> [...] but wouldn't you say that having more than minimal
> knowledge about sendmail would be a first requirement for any
> firm that wants to subscribe to and archive thousands of
> mailinglists?
> Or are there other people at architext that are experts at
> sendmail and mailinglist manager software?
Yes, we have others at Architext who have much more experience dealing
with sendmail and other sysadmin sorts of things. And the underlying
reason for our recent troubles was a lack of sufficent communication
between Jeff Young and our sysadmins, a mistake which we plan to avoid
in the future.
--Graham
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Graham Spencer Phone: 415.934.3613
graham@atext.com Fax: 415.934.3610
Architext Software Mail: 2700 Garcia, Mountain View 94043
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 7 09:30:25 1995
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Cc: majordomo-users@greatcircle.com
Subject: majordomo list newsgroup
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Sun, 06 Aug 1995 16:48:45 PDT."
<199508062348.QAA24542@mas.atext.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 10:02:47 -0600
From: "Franklin R. Jones"
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Hello all,
Anyone out there coupled a majordomo list to a local
newsgroup?
e.g. anything posted to the list appears in the news group and
anything posted to the newsgroup is reflected to the majordomo list
without dup'ing back to the newsgroup.
I have ideas on how this can be done, but I assume someone
must have tackled this before.
any input?
fyi: newsfeed is inn, majordomo 1.93, perl 4.036, Solaris 2.4
this was cross posted to both list-managers & majoromo-users.
thanks,
fj..
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 7 10:00:44 1995
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To: "Franklin R. Jones"
cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com, majordomo-users@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: majordomo list newsgroup
In-reply-to: Your message of "Mon, 07 Aug 1995 10:02:47 MDT."
<9508071602.AA19206@lws489.salttn>
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 12:49:26 -0400
From: "John C. Orthoefer"
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> Anyone out there coupled a majordomo list to a local
> newsgroup?
This has nothing to do with majordomo. Look for a package called
newsgate. It implements the bidirectional feed news mail.
johno
-
John Orthoefer | Take this out and a Unix Demon will dog your steps from
| now until the time_t's wrap around.
617-873-6188 | -- Curse from the tunefs(8) man page source
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 7 10:02:56 1995
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To: "Franklin R. Jones"
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com, majordomo-users@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: majordomo list newsgroup
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 07 Aug 1995 10:02:47 EDT."
<9508071602.AA19206@lws489.salttn>
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 12:51:47 -0400
From: Elizabeth Lear
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
>From: "Franklin R. Jones"
>newsgroup?
>
> e.g. anything posted to the list appears in the news group and
>anything posted to the newsgroup is reflected to the majordomo list
>without dup'ing back to the newsgroup.
Here's what I do for this. This is a repeat of my posting here on 1
June 95.
...eliz
To explain how this is set up, I'll use my gateway of
rec.arts.theatre.musicals as an example. I offer a straight bounce
list and a digest version of the newsgroup to email subscribers. All
messages to the newsgroup are automatically sent to the mailing list.
In order to keep things from looping, submissions to the list aren't
sent to the list, they are posted to the newsgroup and then find their
way to the list.
The /etc/aliases entry:
#
musicals: "|/usr/local/lib/majordomo/wrapper resend -l musicals -h world.std.com musicals-outgoing"
musicals-outgoing: :include: /usr/local/lib/majordomo/Lists/musicals, "|/usr/local/lib/majordomo/wrapper digest -r -C -l musicals-digest musicals-digest-outgoing"
owner-musicals: eliz
musicals-request: "|/usr/local/lib/majordomo/wrapper majordomo -l musicals"
musicals-approval: eliz
#
musicals-digest: musicals-post
musicals-digest-outgoing: :include:/usr/local/lib/majordomo/Lists/musicals-digest musicals-digest-request: "|/usr/local/lib/majordomo/wrapper majordomo -l musicals-digest"
musicals-digest-approval: eliz
owner-musicals-digest: eliz
owner-musicals-digest-request: eliz
#
musicals-post:
"|/usr/local/lib/news/mail2news rec.arts.theatre.musicals world"
#
The /usr/lib/news/sys entry:
musicals:rec.arts.theatre.musicals/all,!local,!wstd::/bin/mail musicals@world.std.com
The config file sets the list to use 'musicals-post@world.std.com' as
the Reply-To address so replies go to the newsgroup.
The program "news2mail":
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
# Gateway a local news group back to a mailing list
# Written by Spike (spike@world.std.com)
# add "local.group.name local-mail-alias" to /usr/lib/news/moderators
# add then add something like to /etc/aliases:
# local-mail-alias:
# "|/usr/local/lib/news/news2mail list-address@somehost"
$list = shift;
if ($list eq "-") {
open(MAIL,"|/bin/cat -u");
} else {
open(MAIL,"|/usr/lib/sendmail $list");
}
while (<>) {
next if (/^From /);
last unless (/^[^ \t]*:/ || (/^[ \t]/ && $. > 1));
if (/^Newsgroups: /i || /^Distribution: /i || /Apparently-To: /i
|| /^Received: /i) {
$killed_last = 1;
next;
}
next if (/^\s+/ && $killed_last);
$killed_last = 0;
print MAIL $_;
}
print MAIL "To: $list\n";
print MAIL "\n" if /\S+$/;
print MAIL $_;
while (<>) { print MAIL $_ ; }
[end]
I also have another setup that gateways a primary mailing list to a
newsgroup for easier reading. The newsgroup is marked as moderated,
and the moderator's address is given as the post-to-the-list address
for the mailing list. This makes it work in reverse of the musicals
list above - the musicals list gets its postings from the group, and
messages from the members are sent to the newsgroup and then back to
the list. The reverse gets all the newsgroup postings from the
mailing list only, and any postings to the newsgroup are sent to the
list and posted from there to the newsgroup as if the moderator had
approved them. In order to do this, the newsgroup posting address
(foobarlist-dist@world.std.com) must be subscribed to the mailing
list.
The /etc/aliases entry (wstd is my local newsgroup hierarchy):
foobarlist-dist: wstd-mail-foobarlist
wstd-mail-foobarlist:
"|/usr/local/lib/news/mail2news wstd.mail.foobarlist wstd"
post-wstd-mail-foobarlist:
"|/usr/local/lib/news/news2mail foobarlist"
foobarlist: foobarlist@real.address.here
foobarlist-request: foobarlist-request@real.address.here
The active file entry:
wstd.mail.foobarlist 0000003259 02963 m
And the program "mail2news":
#!/usr/local/bin/perl
# Gateway a mailing list to a local news group.
# Written by Spike (spike@world.std.com)
# invoked for /etc/aliases with a alias like
# mailing-list-rdist:
# "|/usr/local/lib/news/mail2news local.news.group.name distribution"
$group = shift;
$dist = shift;
if ($group eq "-") {
open(INEWS,"|/bin/cat -u");
} else {
open(INEWS,"|/bin/inews -h");
}
while (<>) {
next if (/^From /);
last unless (/^[^ \t]*:/ || (/^[ \t]/ && $. > 1));
if (/^To: /i || /^Cc: /i || /^Received: /i || /Apparently-To: /i
|| /^Return-Path: /) {
$killed_last = 1;
next;
}
next if (/^\s+/ && $killed_last);
$killed_last = 0;
print INEWS $_;
}
print INEWS "Newsgroups: $group\n";
print INEWS "Distribution: $dist\n";
print INEWS "Approved: usenet@world.std.com\n";
print INEWS "\n" if /\S+$/;
print INEWS $_;
while (<>) { print INEWS $_ ; }
[end]
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 7 11:31:16 1995
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To: Elizabeth Lear
Cc: "Franklin R. Jones" ,
list-managers@greatcircle.com, majordomo-users@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: majordomo list newsgroup
In-Reply-To: Your message of "Mon, 07 Aug 1995 12:51:47 EDT."
<199508071651.AA00610@world.std.com>
Date: Mon, 07 Aug 1995 12:19:02 -0600
From: "Franklin R. Jones"
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
=>Here's what I do for this. This is a repeat of my posting here on 1
=>June 95.
Thanks, eliz! That's exactly what I was looking for (with
about the exact same implemption I was planning.) I must have missed
it the first time you posted it.
fj..
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 7 21:00:06 1995
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To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: merchant@anuxv.att.com (s.merchant)
Original-To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: 7 Aug 1995 13:55 EDT
Subject: re: Architext
In-Reply-To: <199508071630.JAA20198@miles.greatcircle.com>
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
I said:
| 1. They had a single address for *everything* !!?!! [...] Perhaps
| their fuzzy logic fractal-based software straightens it all
| out, but on the surface it certainly looked like it was being
| run by amateurs!
to which Kjetil Torgrim Homme says:
>Sorting by the To/Cc headers isn't exactly rocket science. Of course,
>some terribly broken lists use the individual recipient's address in
and Graham Spencer adds:
>Yes, I agree that this looked unprofessional. We should have specified
>a separate address for the human in charge of the project. However, as
>Kjetil Torgrim Homme suggested in a later
>message, we do have software set up to sort email by sender. List
>content is diverted to individual archives, and non-list content is
Sorry, still not good enough! For one thing, Graham Spencer of
Architext says this is handled by "sorting mail by sender." Clearly
this doesn't work if he means the "From:" field. Perhaps he means the
"Sender:" field in which case at least some of the popular MLMs put
in a Sender: field that uniquely incorporates the list name. But is
this guaranteed? What if there is no Sender: field? What if I send
them personal e-mail with my own address in the Sender: field? Does
their mail filter assume I am a list AND START ARCHIVING MY MESSAGES TO
THEM FOR THE WORLD TO SEE? Or should one assume from Architext's casual
invitation to "drop us a line to tell us that you have [added their
address to your list]" to mean that they only start archiving once (and
if) they get this message from the list owner? Or is all mail by
default sent to a person and once that person establishes the actual
"Sender:" field for a list, then that address is diverted to an archive?
Or perhaps they really are using the "To/Cc:" fields as Kjetil Torgrim
Homme assumes. Many of the same issues still
apply! Suppose I send a message to list-managers with Cc: list@atext.com.
Do they automatically start archiving it under a "list-managers" list
archive, creating one for that purpose? Or does their filter
exclude any message from being archived that has list@atext.com anywhere
in a To: or Cc: field? And what if I put it in a "Bcc:" field?
What if I put Cc: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no? Would it think that that's a
list and create a *public* archive under that name for what is really
personal mail from me to the Architext administrator and him? Would it
make a difference which address were in the "To:" field and which in the
"Cc:"?
Yes, it's trivial to write a mail filter to handle all these cases and
then some. But it's not trivial to anticipate all these cases, and it's
even less trivial to convey to those like me (who waste my time wondering
about special cases) some confidence that *they've* thought about all
the special cases. And the casual way in which list owners were asked
to add list@atext.com to their lists hardly gave much reassurance that
all these things were considered!
(And all this just to wonder why they didn't respond to my e-mail!)
I'm actually supportive of their efforts, as I indicated in my earlier
e-mail, and I've tried to make my criticism constructive. But, I say to
Architext, "Go back and think about every concern that anyone has raised
in this discussion and *address it*. I'm no expert on copyrights, for
instance, but people bring up potential copyright problems associated
with Architext's "reselling" this information and this 'scares' me
(justifiably or not is irrelevant). So have *your* lawyers study the
copyright issue, write up a statement that addresses every actual or
potential concern you can think of that a list owner may have, and
include this in your FAQ to list owners whose cooperation you're
seeking." [Better late than never--I'm glad to see per Graham Spencer's
e-mails that Architext has made a start at doing this sort of thing, and
so I'll give them a week or two and check out their Web "answers"
page....]
Shahrukh
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 7 21:30:06 1995
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From: Lazlo Nibble
Message-Id: <199508080428.WAA27838@kitsune.swcp.com>
Subject: re: Architext
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com (lm)
Date: Mon, 7 Aug 1995 22:27:59 -0600 (MDT)
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> Sorry, still not good enough! For one thing, Graham Spencer of
> Architext says this is handled by "sorting mail by sender." Clearly
> this doesn't work if he means the "From:" field. Perhaps he means the
> "Sender:" field in which case at least some of the popular MLMs put
> in a Sender: field that uniquely incorporates the list name. But is
> this guaranteed? [...]
This is wandering off into the Land of Ludicrous Vendettas. Can we please
call a halt to the straw-man flamage around this issue?
--
::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo)
From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 8 00:00:10 1995
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From: Stephanie da Silva
Message-Id: <199508080617.BAA01268@bonkers.taronga.com>
Subject: Re: Mailing Lists
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Tue, 8 Aug 1995 01:17:32 -0500 (CDT)
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Keith Moore:
[Decided to clean out my mailbox here]
> Maybe you could put a note in your list of lists to the effect that
> one should only post messages that were on topic, and that one should
> NEVER send the same message to all lists. At least the honest people
> would know better then.
I have been meaning to write a FAQ for months now to post to
news.announce.newusers and have just never gotten around to it. Too
many other projects going on (several which I've decided to shut down,
like most of my newsreading) and I always shuffled it to the backburner.
In it I plan to describe what mailing lists are, moderated vs. open,
manual vs. managed with a listserver, the most common flavours of
listservers, how to subscribe and unsubscribe, how to contact the list
manager and a brief rundown of list etiquette.
Woo, a bit more complex than it sounds on the surface. I'll get to it
one of these days.
From list-managers-owner Tue Aug 8 13:01:20 1995
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From: Lazlo Nibble
Message-Id: <199508041516.JAA22172@kitsune.swcp.com>
Subject: bounce filter?
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com (lm)
Date: Fri, 4 Aug 1995 09:16:33 -0600 (MDT)
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Has anyone else designed a filter for all the bounce messages that end up
in a list manager's mailbox? I'm getting ready to whip one up that'll
junk all the messages I know I don't need to see (all the "waiting mail"
notifications, etc.), auto-unsubscribe deleted accounts...but if there's
already something similar out there I don't want to duplicate the effort.
--
::: Lazlo (lazlo@swcp.com; http://www.swcp.com/lazlo)
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 9 12:02:00 1995
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Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 11:56:34 -0700
From: Ramon F Herrera
Message-Id: <199508091856.LAA45187@canaima.ME.Berkeley.EDU>
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Looking for mailing list on CIX and related items
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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This is the closest place that I have found so far so ask
my question, so please bear with me.
I need to read about issues such as: CIX, how to handle partnership
between Internet provider companies, ("if you send so many packets/bytes
through my network, and I send so many, then you should pay me such
and such at the end of the month"). Other issues would be the
demark beetween government-sponsored networks and private ones.
How is it best to split the Internet "pie" between fiercely competing
companies that want to enter the ISP market in a country that recently
"discovered" the Internet (geographically? by industry or level of
reliability/confidentiality required?)
I suppose that there must be some place on the Internet where the
management and polices of the net itself are discussed.
Mailing lists? Newsgroups? Other source of info on this topic?
Isn't there something like 'isp-managers' mailing list?
Thanks,
-Ramon Herrera
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 9 21:30:05 1995
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Message-Id: <199508100409.XAA02177@hostname.schoneal.com>
Subject: Hot Dog wonders...
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Wed, 9 Aug 1995 23:09:20 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To:
From: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Reply-To: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Organization: Schober O'Neal, Inc / Net Ads
X-WWW-URL: http://www.netads.com/~meo/
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Dave Del Torto said...
|
|Actually, I'm more against the _idea_ of what you and other services like
|yours represent. I wrote in an earlier post about the similarity I see
|between what you're doing and what West Publications does by indexing the
|text of all legal procedings in the US and then claiming the right to sell
|it all back to the citizens. In other words, I have philosophical
|objections to your purpose. There are significant differences, since your
|materials are available on the net, but you and I both know that once
|mailing lists have sent their stuff, past posts are rarely archived unless
|the host/maintainer has lots of money for HD space, so someday, you will
|have people by the short and curlies if they want historical data.
[Just some thoughts from the flip side...]
This suggests that most people either can't afford the disk space,
or are too short-sighted to save the data, or too lazy/untechnical/etc
to set up archival/retrieval software.
In any case, if someone else goes to the trouble to do all this, and
charges a price people are willing to pay, it's a Good Thing, not a
Bad Thing. Yeah, copyright issues have to be hashed out, but that's
beside the point. If you can't afford a GB of disk (gee, it costs so
*much* nowadays... 8^), or won't shell out the bucks, then why should
someone else archive/index it for free for you?
I love the Interet. I love free information. I also recognize that
neither computers nor networks are free - they are paid for in money,
or in time & effort.
-Miles
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 10 09:30:16 1995
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Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 12:07:28 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joshua Redman
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: FAQ?
Message-Id:
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Hi,
I'm looking for either a list-managers-FAQ or a Majordomo-FAQ. Would
anyone know of a site/place where I could get such a thing?
Thanks in advance?
****************************************************************************
Paul Turner |
Kean College | &&&&& & & &&&&& &&&&&&& &&&&&&
E-mail: pault@turbo.kean.edu |& & & & & & & & & &
|& & & & & & & &
| &&&&& & &&&&& &&&& & & &&&&&&
Old men have dreams but | & & & & & &
young men have vision. |& & & & & & & &
- Seekers | &&&&& & &&&&& &&&&&&& &
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 10 15:00:37 1995
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Date: Thu, 10 Aug 1995 17:34:50 -0400 (EDT)
From: Joshua Redman
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: OSF/1 3.2b Wrapper - errors..
Message-Id:
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Thanks Dave & Doug,
I went to the Web site and found the page. But, it wasn't much help. I
have a DEC Alpha 2100, running OSF/1 ver 3.2b. I've run into a snag with
the "make wrapper". All the files wrapper.c & wrapper.sh are in the
current directory. When I try to make wrapper I get this
# make wrapper
cc -DBIN=\"/usr/local/majordom\" -DPATH=\"PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb\" -DHOME=\"HOME=/usr/local/majordom\" -DSHELL=\"SHELL=/bin/csh\" -DMAJORDOMO_CF=\"MAJORDOMO_CF=/usr/local/majordom/majordomo.cf\" -DPOSIX_UID=54 -DPOSIX_GID=54 -DSETGROUP -o wr
apper wrapper.c
/usr/lib/cmplrs/cc/cfe: Warning: wrapper.c, line 65: illegal combination of pointer and integer
if (strchr(argv[1], '/') != (char *) 0L) {
-----------------------------^
/usr/lib/cmplrs/cc/cfe: Warning: wrapper.c, line 99: illegal combination of pointer and integer
char setgroups_used = "setgroups_was_included";
---------^
My home directory for Majordomo is /usr/local/majordom.
My Makefile is set for POSIX.
If anybody has some insights/suggestions, it would be greatly
appreciated.
..............................................................................
Joshua | __________________
Kean College Sys-op | ( I don't do )
Voice: 908-527-2061 | ( )
Email: joshua@turbo.kean.edu | ( Windows!!! )
| ( )
"All things will unfold as | ( I only do Motif! )
they should" | `---. ,------------'
-Seekers | |/
| 0 '
| --|--
| |
| /^\
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 14 13:30:38 1995
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Date: Mon, 14 Aug 95 15:54:03 PDT
Subject: Problem with Majordomo on HPUX 9.05
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
X-Mailer: Chameleon ARM_55, TCP/IP for Windows, NetManage Inc.
Message-Id:
Mime-Version: 1.0
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I am trying to set up a Majordomo on a HP running HPUX 9.05. When I send a message to
majordomo I get the following error message. Can anyone offer some suggestions??
majordomo: Exec format error
554 "|/usr/local/lib/mail/majordomo/sbin/wrapper majordomo"... unknown mailer error 5
_____________________________________________________
|Company: Q U A L I T Y S Y S T E M S I N C. |
| __ __ _____ |
|Real Name: Scott Nichols / \ / \ | |
|Office Phone: (703) 281-8908 | | \__ | |
|Office Fax : (703) 242-0013 | | \ | |
|Compuserve 71620.1434 \ __ / \__/ __|__ |
|Internet sfn@qsi.com \ |
|_____________________________________________________|
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 18:00:14 1995
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From: Muhammad Salman Mughal
Message-Id: <199508170028.TAA14033@earth.sparco.com>
Subject: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 19:28:53 -0500 (CDT)
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23]
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Hi all,
I've finally been able to setup an experimental list server. Many
thanks to Mr. Chapman for writing such an ingenious piece of software!
I was wondering if there is a way to append/assign "Reply-To:" tag
in the outgoing mail header? There is something in the listname.config
file which states:
: # reply_to [word] ()
: # Put a reply-to header with value into the outgoin message.
: # If the token $SENDER is used, then the address of the sender is used
: # as the value of the reply-to header. This is the value of the reply-
: # to header for digest lists.
: reply_to =
As you can see, it's for "digest lists". I am interested in regular
mailing lists. If there is a way to do, I'll really appreciate if
you could help me out here. Thanks.
--
Salman Mughal Computer Science Mississippi State University
Email: msm6@Ra.MsState.Edu WWW: http://www2.msstate.edu/~msm6
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 18:30:12 1995
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From: Muhammad Salman Mughal
Message-Id: <199508170123.UAA14596@earth.sparco.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: csdayton@midway.uchicago.edu (Soren Dayton)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 20:23:02 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199508170113.UAA10854@woodlawn.uchicago.edu> from "Soren Dayton" at Aug 16, 95 08:12:59 pm
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: This strikes me as a bad thing to do. Here are my reasons:
:
[ snipped ]
: I am curious what people think of this.
:
: Soren Dayton
Sometimes, you really don't care who is sending the mail, you just
want the replies to be distributed to the members. This kinda situation
is most likly to arise in a mailing list which is considerably small and
you know the emails of all the members. By small I mean, around 10-20
members. You just cann't, rather don't wanna, type everyone's email in
the CC: section. This is ofcouse what I think why there is a need for
overwriting a "Reply-To:" tag :-)
--
Salman Mughal Computer Science Mississippi State University
Email: msm6@Ra.MsState.Edu WWW: http://www2.msstate.edu/~msm6
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 18:37:02 1995
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Message-Id: <199508170113.UAA10854@woodlawn.uchicago.edu>
To: Muhammad Salman Mughal
cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
In-reply-to: Your message of "Wed, 16 Aug 1995 19:28:53 CDT."
<199508170028.TAA14033@earth.sparco.com>
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 20:12:59 CDT
From: Soren Dayton
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
In the message <199508170028.TAA14033@earth.sparco.com>,
Muhammad Salman Mughal said:
> I was wondering if there is a way to append/assign "Reply-To:" tag
>in the outgoing mail header? There is something in the listname.config
>file which states:
This strikes me as a bad thing to do. Here are my reasons:
1. It rewrites a header that the user put there that is
not dangerous.
2. It makes it harder to make individual responses to
the author of the letter.
3. By my reading of RFC 822 it is not acceptable
behaviour. This RFC seems to indicate that this is
defined by the originator, not by the mailing list
software
I am curious what people think of this.
Soren Dayton
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 19:30:15 1995
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From: Chip Rosenthal
Message-Id: <199508170159.UAA08827@chinacat.unicom.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: salman@earth.sparco.com (Muhammad Salman Mughal)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 20:59:52 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: csdayton@midway.uchicago.edu, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199508170123.UAA14596@earth.sparco.com> from "Muhammad Salman Mughal" at Aug 16, 95 08:23:02 pm
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.5 PL0a6]
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Muhammad Salman Mughal writes:
> You just cann't, rather don't wanna, type everyone's email in
> the CC: section. This is ofcouse what I think why there is a need for
> overwriting a "Reply-To:" tag :-)
It would greatly behoove you to invest that time in reading the docs
for your mail user agent (Elm as I see from the X-Mailer header)
instead of hacking code. I'd start at the G)roup-reply command.
--
Chip Rosenthal Old men sing about their dreams. Women laugh and
Unicom Systems Development children scream. And the band keeps playin' on.
For a good time: http://www.unicom.com/john-hiatt/
PGP key: http://www.unicom.com/personal/chip.html
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 19:33:23 1995
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From: Muhammad Salman Mughal
Message-Id: <199508170158.UAA14925@earth.sparco.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: salman@earth.sparco.com (Muhammad Salman Mughal)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 20:58:45 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <199508170123.UAA14596@earth.sparco.com> from "Muhammad Salman Mughal" at Aug 16, 95 08:23:02 pm
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: : This strikes me as a bad thing to do. Here are my reasons:
: :
:
: [ snipped ]
:
: : I am curious what people think of this.
: :
: : Soren Dayton
:
: Sometimes, you really don't care who is sending the mail, you just
: want the replies to be distributed to the members. This kinda situation
: is most likly to arise in a mailing list which is considerably small and
: you know the emails of all the members. By small I mean, around 10-20
: members. You just cann't, rather don't wanna, type everyone's email in
: the CC: section. This is ofcouse what I think why there is a need for
: overwriting a "Reply-To:" tag :-)
I know you can include the listname email address in CC section, but I think
it would be neat to just do a "reply" and start typing your comments :-)
--
Salman Mughal Computer Science Mississippi State University
Email: msm6@Ra.MsState.Edu WWW: http://www2.msstate.edu/~msm6
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 19:36:53 1995
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From: Muhammad Salman Mughal
Message-Id: <199508170219.VAA15070@earth.sparco.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: chip@unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal)
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 21:19:32 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199508170159.UAA08827@chinacat.unicom.com> from "Chip Rosenthal" at Aug 16, 95 08:59:52 pm
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:
: Muhammad Salman Mughal writes:
: > You just cann't, rather don't wanna, type everyone's email in
: > the CC: section. This is ofcouse what I think why there is a need for
: > overwriting a "Reply-To:" tag :-)
:
: It would greatly behoove you to invest that time in reading the docs
: for your mail user agent (Elm as I see from the X-Mailer header)
: instead of hacking code. I'd start at the G)roup-reply command.
I guess I was a little too obscure while stating my reasons for overriding
the default "Reply-To:" tag. I simply think that "sometimes" there is no
need to directly reply to the sender. All you want is that the reply
should go back to the mailing list. Moreover, if you know the person who
is sending the mail, you could always do a "forward" to his/her email
address if you want to send a private note.
Regards,
--
Salman Mughal Computer Science Mississippi State University
Email: msm6@Ra.MsState.Edu WWW: http://www2.msstate.edu/~msm6
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 21:00:31 1995
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Message-Id: <199508170338.WAA14069@schoneal.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Wed, 16 Aug 1995 22:38:28 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To:
From: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Reply-To: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Organization: Schober O'Neal, Inc / Net Ads
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Soren Dayton said...
|Muhammad Salman Mughal said:
|>I was wondering if there is a way to append/assign "Reply-To:" tag
|>in the outgoing mail header? There is something in the listname.config
|>file which states:
| This strikes me as a bad thing to do. Here are my reasons:
| 1. It rewrites a header that the user put there that is
| not dangerous.
Or as likely, the site's sendmail config file did.
And not all sites/mailers add this header.
| 2. It makes it harder to make individual responses to
| the author of the letter.
With all the lists I'm on, group responses are *much*
more common than individual responses. You make the
common response the easier response. In general, I
prefer the reply to go to the list, so I like the idea.
I'm on 7 or 8 lists, and all but a couple include a
Reply-to: list_address header.
| 3. By my reading of RFC 822 it is not acceptable
| behaviour. This RFC seems to indicate that this is
| defined by the originator, not by the mailing list
| software
Too bad. The RFC will just have to get its own list. 8^)
Seriously, this is a logical thing for some lists, and it's
up to the list admin and/or the list members to decide what
they want. If the originator has a problem with this, they
can discuss it with the list administrator and/or the list.
-Miles
meo@schoneal.com
From list-managers-owner Wed Aug 16 22:30:37 1995
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From: Chip Rosenthal
Message-Id: <199508170514.AAA10331@chinacat.unicom.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: salman@earth.sparco.com (Muhammad Salman Mughal)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 00:14:10 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199508170219.VAA15070@earth.sparco.com> from "Muhammad Salman Mughal" at Aug 16, 95 09:19:32 pm
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Muhammad Salman Mughal writes:
> I simply think that "sometimes" there is no
> need to directly reply to the sender.
I'm tired of beating this horse every three months. (And not necessarily
just on this list.)
I've thrown together a *very* rough draft of a page on this topic, entitled
``Reply-To Munging Considered Harmful''. It is available at
. I welcome any
comments.
--
Chip Rosenthal Old men sing about their dreams. Women laugh and
Unicom Systems Development children scream. And the band keeps playin' on.
For a good time: http://www.unicom.com/john-hiatt/
PGP key: http://www.unicom.com/personal/chip.html
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 17 08:30:51 1995
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From: Ernie Longmire
Message-Id: <199508171431.OAA06804@speedyg.basis.com>
Subject: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 08:31:46 -0600 (MDT)
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> : # reply_to [word] ()
> : # Put a reply-to header with value into the outgoin message.
> : # If the token $SENDER is used, then the address of the sender is used
> : # as the value of the reply-to header. This is the value of the reply-
> : # to header for digest lists.
> : reply_to =
>
> As you can see, it's for "digest lists".
Majordomo's "reply_to" setting applies to *all* lists; I use it to force
replies to the list on my lists. The wording in the config file is
extremely unclear and misleading. (The "how to do this under majordomo"
aspects of this discussion belong on the majordomo-users list, not here.)
--
Ernie Longmire (elongmi@basis.com)
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 17 08:42:48 1995
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Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 10:05:23 -0500 (CDT)
From: "S Clift (North Star)"
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Preventing Mail Loops, Other
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In a few weeks the person who set-up majordomo and has served as list
administrator will be leaving (he was on a summer contract). I assume
his responsibilities will be shifted, but I need to make some changes
ASAP to prevent a mail loop from developing on the two unmoderated lists
that I own. How do I (or does list adminstrator have to) change the
Reply-To section from the the list to the original sender. We had
someone go on vaction, activate their auto-reply and boom - major
embarrassment.
Also, I get this "bounce" message periodically. What is messed up?
Thanks,
Steven Clift
State of Minnesota
nstar@nic.state.mn.us
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The original message was received at Thu, 17 Aug 1995 00:00:04 -0500
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----- The following addresses had delivery problems -----
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----- Transcript of session follows -----
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To: Bounces@nic.state.mn.us
From: nobody@nic.state.mn.us
Subject: Bouncing email from mailing lists at nic.state.mn.us
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Your address has been moved to Bounces@nic.state.mn.us
from some other mailing list at nic.state.mn.us
because email to you was bouncing.
Here are the addresses currently on Bounces@nic.state.mn.us
so that you can see which of your addresses is among them.
The comment for each address shows the date it was moved,
and the first list it was removed from. If you were on
multiple lists here, you may have been removed from them
as well, but only the first list you were removed from
will show up in the comment below.
If the problem has been fixed, you can get off of
Bounces and back on to the other list by sending the
following to Majordomo@nic.state.mn.us:
subscribe your_list
unsubscribe bounces
To subscribe or unsubscribe an address other than where you're
sending the command from, append the other address to the end
of the "subscribe" or "unsubscribe" command (for example,
"subscribe your_list foo@bar.com").
You'll need to access the mailing list archives if you want to catch
up on whatever you missed while you were off the main list.
If you don't want to keep getting these reminders every day, but
don't want to resubscribe to the list, send just the "unsubscribe"
command shown above.
If you need to contact a human being regarding this, send a message
to Majordomo-Owner@nic.state.mn.us.
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 17 11:01:51 1995
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From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
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To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-reply-to: <199508170514.AAA10331@chinacat.unicom.com> (message from Chip Rosenthal on Thu, 17 Aug 1995 00:14:10 -0500 (CDT))
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
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[Chip Rosenthal]
| I've thrown together a *very* rough draft of a page on this topic,
| entitled ``Reply-To Munging Considered Harmful''. It is available
| at . I welcome
| any comments.
Great, Chip! All you who advocate munging Reply-to must read this. I'd
be interested to hear you refute what Chip's saying.
Kjetil T.
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 17 11:30:28 1995
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Newsgroups: local.list-managers
Path: scs
From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
Message-ID: <1995Aug17.164202.27695@lokkur.dexter.mi.us>
Organization: Inland Sea
References: <199508170113.UAA10854@woodlawn.uchicago.edu>
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Soren Dayton writes:
> This strikes me as a bad thing to do . . . [[reasons removed]]
> I am curious what people think of this.
*shrug* For some lists its the right thing to do, for some it's not.
So long as the participants know what the individual list does, it's
cool.
--
Simmons' Law Of Alcoholic Expectations:
The best stuff always happens after the meeting, when everyone goes to
the bar.
Correlary: Any meeting which doesn't adjourn to the bar isn't worth going to.
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 17 13:35:58 1995
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Path: scs
From: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
Message-ID: <1995Aug17.202552.7274@lokkur.dexter.mi.us>
Organization: Inland Sea
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Kjetil Torgrim Homme writes:
>[Chip Rosenthal]
>| I've thrown together a *very* rough draft of a page on this topic,
>| entitled ``Reply-To Munging Considered Harmful''. It is available
>| at . I welcome
>| any comments.
>Great, Chip! All you who advocate munging Reply-to must read this. I'd
>be interested to hear you refute what Chip's saying.
Summary: same as what I said earlier `*shrug*', but at greater length.
Taking Chips summary as a kicking off point, I will offer refutation
by various counter-examples. Most prominent will be the General
Technics/Permanent Floating Riot Club mailing list, which does
Reply-To munging.
FYI, Chip and I go way back on the Elm lists, and I have great
respect for him and his work. Nothing I say here should be taken as
personal criticism of Chip, nor does my disagreement here lessen my
respect of him.
chip> Many people want to munge Reply-To headers. They believe it makes
chip> reply-to-list easier, and it encourages more list traffic. It really
chip> does neither, and is a very poor idea. Reply-To munging suffers from
chip> the following problems:
chip>
chip> o It violates the principle of minimal munging.
True.
chip> o It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer.
This presumes of course, that the readers of the mailing list all have
access to a reasonable mailer. One member of the Dorsai Irregulars
Mailing List works for a bank which mandates the use of a particular
brain-dead system that uses X.400 addresses, cannot generate a
subject field on internet-gated mail, and always generates return
addresses of the form
`X.400 crap here'@bank.x400domain!otherhost@attmail.com
Assuming her mailer understands the difference between group and
individual reply is not a safe assumption. Nor is assuming that
a given user knows that difference for any given mail package.
chip> o It actually reduces functionality for the user of a
chip> reasonable mailer.
If the list is done correctly, only in a very minimal fashion.
Consider the following article from gt-pfrc [I've purged many of
the irrelevant headers]:
gt> From: nickerson@BIX.com
gt> Subject: Re: Part help?...
gt> To: gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
gt> Sender: owner-gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
gt> Reply-To: gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
gt> Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 12:49:43 -0400 (EDT)
gt>
gt> {#} Replies are directed back to gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
gt> {#} To reply to the author, write to nickerson@BIX.com
gt>
gt> >We've a 10base-T hub at work in which the cooling fan has decided
gt> >to go on strike permanently.
gt>
gt> When my power supply fan decided to start squealing, and then stopped,
gt> I disassembled it, cleaned it, and lubed it (Triflow-the world's best
gt> lubricrant). It's like new again. Unless a wire burnt up there isn't
gt> much that can go wrong with a fan.
gt>
gt> Kevin "Can't break it, it alread is"
gt>
gt> {#}--------------=[ GT/PFRC -- Science Fact and Science Fiction ]=---
Note the inserted {#}. Since Gabe (the list manager) has been doing
this, I have seen zero (count-em) zero complaints about mis-replied
mail. Previously, people were constantly getting things other than
what they expected.
chip> o It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to
chip> coddle those running brain-dead software.
I would argue that penalization is small to zero, where the win for
letting members with brain-dead software participate can be a big
win for the right group.
chip> o It removes important information, which can make it impossible
chip> to get back to the message sender.
Note in the gt-pfrc example above, the important data is right there
at your fingertips. Gabe did it right.
chip> o It is arrogant because it asserts the will of the list
chip> administrator onto all of the list subscribers.
The group as a whole wished for the change. Doing anything other than
following the will of the group would be arrogant.
chip> o It violates the principle of least work because complicates
chip> the procedure for replying to messages.
The members of the list decided they wished all the items to go to
the list as a whole (and gt-pfrc is not the only list I see like that).
chip> o It violates the principle of least surprise because it changes
chip> the way a mailer works.
This criticism can be made of *any* capricious use of Reply-To:, as
various email and netnews spams have shown us. The critical point
is *capricious* use. Reply-To has a purpose, and when used wisely
it works fine.
chip> o It violates the principle of least damage, and it encourages
chip> a failure mode that can be extremely embarrassing -- or worse.
Agreed.
chip> o Your subscribers don't want you to do it.
Disproof by counter-example, above.
My summary -- if it's what the members want and is done with care
and caution, it works fine. I agree with Chip that in *most* cases,
automatic `Reply-To: list' is a bad idea, but there are definately
times when it is the right thing to do.
Chip, if you'd like to drop this onto your page as a comment I'd be
honored.
Steve
--
Simmons' Law Of Alcoholic Expectations:
The best stuff always happens after the meeting, when everyone goes to
the bar.
Correlary: Any meeting which doesn't adjourn to the bar isn't worth going to.
From list-managers-owner Thu Aug 17 19:30:04 1995
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From: Chip Rosenthal
Message-Id: <199508180159.UAA16790@chinacat.unicom.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com (The List-Managers Mailing List)
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 20:59:17 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: bthorp@wimsey.bc.ca
In-Reply-To: <6npCmyib7Sd8078yn@wimsey.bc.ca> from "Bryan Thorp" at Aug 17, 95 05:55:34 am
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[name from private email message elided] writes:
> Would you happen to have a text version that's ftp-able?
I'm answering this private message in public just in case anybody
else out there wants this info.
The "Reply-To Munging Considered Harmful" paper is available in
any of the following ways:
FTP: nope, sorry
WWW: http://www.unicom.com/FAQ/reply-to-evil.html
Gopher: in the FAQ area of gopher.unicom.com
E-Mail: send a message
To: archive-server@unicom.com
Subject: send 00h/FAQ/reply-to-evil
Just the Subject: matters, the message body is ignored.
Be sure to get the Subject: spelled and capitalized
precisely as shown.
By the way, the URL I provided last night had a typo (extra slash), but
it works anyway.
--
Chip Rosenthal Old men sing about their dreams. Women laugh and
Unicom Systems Development children scream. And the band keeps playin' on.
For a good time: http://www.unicom.com/john-hiatt/
PGP key: http://www.unicom.com/personal/chip.html
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 18 07:30:26 1995
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for list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
From: Gess Shankar
Reply-To: gess@knex.mind.org (Gess Shankar)
Message-ID:
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 95 08:39:08 EST
In-Reply-To: <199508171730.2413.gyda.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
Organization: |<><>| Knowledge Exchange, GA, USA |<><>|
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Kjetil Torgrim Homme writes:
> [Chip Rosenthal]
>
> | I've thrown together a *very* rough draft of a page on this topic,
> | entitled ``Reply-To Munging Considered Harmful''. It is available
> | at . I welcome
> | any comments.
>
> Great, Chip! All you who advocate munging Reply-to must read this. I'd
> be interested to hear you refute what Chip's saying.
>
I see the point about minimal munging, but the reply-to-evil document
which accuses List Admins of arrogance is arrogant itself by assuming
that users have control over what mail agent they run. Online service
subscribers will likely form the majority of many lists and things
like "r" and "R"s mean nothing to them.
Compuserve appears to present the envelope From_ as the address to
send to, when the users push the Reply button (and there is only
one reply button to push). AOL ui probably has a similar interface.
Any amount of quoting RFC822 and other RFCs will do no good with
these faceless corporations. They may change eventually, but in the
meantime....
Recently a list I subscribe to had to revert to Reply-To munging due to
hue and cry from the subscribers. This... despite incidences described
in Chip's document... private mail sent to list accidentally. And most
of them software developers with "smart" mailers (I presume).
I do set Reply-To: to one of the lists I run to the list address. The
list is moderated and consists of large number of online service users.
I had to take this tactic, because posters' mailboxes were getting
flooded with responses (flames, me too etc.) and good contributors
started leaving the list or stopped contributing.
Unless there is a universal standard on how headers are treated by
the various MUAs, especially by services like AOL, Prodigy, msn et al I
am ambivalent. Most AOL users won't know how to post to this list, for
example and will reply only to the original poster.
GeSS
--
Gess Shankar |<><>|Internet: gess@knex.mind.ORG |<><>|
Knowledge Exchange|<><>|:::::::::::::::::::::::::|<><>|
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 18 09:00:46 1995
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From: dattier@wwa.com (David W. Tamkin)
Subject: Re: Clobbering "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mail
To: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 10:42:48 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
In-Reply-To: <1995Aug17.202552.7274@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> from "Steve Simmons" at Aug 17, 95 08:25:52 pm
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Steve Simmons took some exceptions to Chip Rosenthal's anti-munging position:
(Note: I am one of the people who tried to talk Chip out of munging before he
saw the light on his own. That said, the lists I run offer default public
reply as a discouraged option and one has a sublist which, by its nature,
justifies default public replies, but as a general rule I am very strongly
in favor of default private replies.)
R> o It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer.
S> This presumes of course, that the readers of the mailing list all have
S> access to a reasonable mailer.
OK, Steve, suppose a list member has a mailer with no group-reply facility.
Which is easier for him or her to do:
1. To override a default private reply by typing in the list address, which
the member may well know by heart or for which he or she may have an alias
installed; or
2. To override a default public reply by writing down and typing in the
author's address, which the respondent is very unlikely to have already
memorized or aliased?
S> Consider the following [sample] from [the General Technics/Permanent
Floating Riot Club list, whose maintainer Steve called just "Gabe"] ... :
S> gt> From: nickerson@BIX.com
S> gt> Subject: Re: Part help?...
S> gt> To: gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
S> gt> Sender: owner-gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
S> gt> Reply-To: gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
S> gt> Date: Thu, 17 Aug 1995 12:49:43 -0400 (EDT)
S> gt>
S> gt> {#} Replies are directed back to gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
S> gt> {#} To reply to the author, write to nickerson@BIX.com
Some HUGE points to make here:
1. A reader wishing to send a private reply still has to write down or
memorize the author's address and type it in. If the reader's mailer
does have a group-reply facility, its functionality is short-circuited.
2. You left a *big* question open. What happens when the author sends
headers with a Reply-To: address that differs from the From: header?
(The sample you used originated from BIX, so it probably had no incoming
Reply-To: header.) Does Gabe put the incoming Reply-To: information into
the body or always use From:, losing the original Reply-To:? If he always
takes it from From:, then the real address for private replies is *lost*,
just as Chip said happens when you munge.
3. If you're taking the stand that reminding people where to send a private
reply is just as good as making it easy, then anyone else can take the
position that reminding people where to send a public reply is just as
good as making it easy. With all the other arguments in favor of default-
ing to private replies, it makes more sense to leave the headers alone and
insert this:
{#} Replies are directed the author at nickerson@BIX.com
{#} To reply to the list, write to gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
4. Headers and footers don't work very well. We've had similar discussions
on list-managers about putting the submission and administrative addresses
into a header or a footer of every item, and we all know the results: the
members who need those reminders are the most likely to ignore them. A
large contingent worship their reply functions as omniscient gods, will
ignore or forget what they saw in the text, will slam their `r' keys out
of mindless habit, and will neglect or forget to change the reply address.
Notice I spoke of using the keyboard: those who use pictorial interfaces
are MORE prone yet to accept with blind faith whatever happens when they
click on their reply icons and tend to be extremely reluctant to second-
guess their infallible computers.
However, I do thank you and Gabe for that idea; until now, for those list
members who opt for default public replies despite my discouragement, I've
been saving any original Reply-To: header as an "Author-Reply-To:" header.
I may move the information to the body, where readers will have a slightly
greater chance of registering it.
R> o It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to
R> coddle those running brain-dead software.
S> I would argue that penalization is small to zero, where the win for
S> letting members with brain-dead software participate can be a big
S> win for the right group.
What big win? What *little* win? Members can participate only if they can
write where they mean to write, and as I illustrated above it's far easier
to override a default private reply when you want to answer in public than to
override a default public reply when you want to answer in private. Getting
your private mail blared to the world is what I call a penalty, and there is
no win at all. Sending personal mail for one other member out to the entire
list isn't participation; it's disruption.
R> o It removes important information, which can make it impossible
R> to get back to the message sender.
S> Note in the gt-pfrc example above, the important data is right there
S> at your fingertips.
The address is far from your fingertips; you have to memorize it or write it
down to have it available when you redirect your response. And are those
the _important_ data? Read on:
S> Gabe did it right.
OK, suppose there are special-case reasons for gt-pfrc to default to public
replies: again, one question is still unanswered. You didn't say whether, if
an incoming submission has its own Reply-To: header, Gabe uses it in the body
or ignores it and always repeats From: in the body. If he uses the From:
header when there is an incoming Reply-To:, he's doing it very, very wrong.
S> The group as a whole wished for the change. ...
They were unanimous -- no dissensions, no abstentions? Groups never function
as wholes. That's why I made it an option.
S> My summary -- if it's what the members want and is done with care
S> and caution, it works fine. I agree with Chip that in *most* cases,
S> automatic `Reply-To: list' is a bad idea, but there are definately
S> times when it is the right thing to do.
My summary: [1] the lists where it is wrong but done regardless definitely
outnumber those where it is right and done accordingly; [2] there is never
a monolithic preference in any mailing list with two or more members; [3] it
is far easier to respond publicly when the default is private (even without
a group-reply facility in your mailer) than to respond privately when the
default is public; and [4] it is easy to fix having sent a reply privately
when you meant to send it publicly but _impossible_ to undo having sent it
publicly when you wanted to send it privately.
S> Correlary: ...
That's "corollary". You might be confusing it with "correlation".
This is already very long, and I'm done responding to Steve Simmons, so I'll
send the rest of my comments on the matter separately.
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 18 19:00:02 1995
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Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 18:39:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: Dick Moores
X-Sender: rdm@netcom17
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: Where to get help for LISTPROC
In-Reply-To: <199508190038.RAA03563@miles.greatcircle.com>
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Where do I go to get answers to questions that aren't covered in the docs
available to users of LISTPROC? Is there a list?
Thanks
Dick Moores rdm@netcom.com
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 18 21:00:20 1995
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From: Chip Rosenthal
Message-Id: <199508190335.WAA05425@chinacat.unicom.com>
Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us (Steve Simmons)
Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 22:35:08 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com (The List-Managers Mailing List)
In-Reply-To: <1995Aug17.202552.7274@lokkur.dexter.mi.us> from "Steve Simmons" at Aug 17, 95 08:25:52 pm
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Thanks for the comments Steve. I don't want to create a long boring
point-by-point counter-rebuttal. There are, however, a few comments
I'd like to make.
Steve Simmons writes:
> Summary: same as what I said earlier `*shrug*', but at greater length.
My concern is that if it's just a "shrug" then it shouldn't be done.
You seem to agree with me that the "Principle of Minimal Munging" is
a useful guide. As I point out, this is not a hard-and-fast rule.
Rather, it sets a default: unless there is good reason to, then don't.
If the balance between benefits and drawbacks is no more than a shrug,
then I think the principle kicks in and says, ``Don't.''
> gt> {#} Replies are directed back to gt-pfrc@angus.mystery.com
> gt> {#} To reply to the author, write to nickerson@BIX.com
I wrote that note to get people to think about this stuff. As I said,
RFC-822 is deceptively tricky. I showed, for instance, how munging
Reply-To can lose important information, making the sender unreachable.
I fear that most people who munge do not think about these things.
I find two interesting things about Steve's example.
First, it's clear that he *has* thought about the problems. The added
tag-line prevents the loss of potentially important information. It
helps address some of the other problems, such as reducing the "surprise"
factor.
On the other hand, the tag line confirms that the problems that I
raised are real. Reply-To munging, for instance, breaks the reply
function. If it didn't, the tag line wouldn't be necessary.
> chip> o It violates the principle of minimal munging.
>
> True.
Oh sure...give me the one that I say was "invented to be broken". :-)
> chip> o It provides no benefit to the user of a reasonable mailer.
>
> This presumes of course, that the readers of the mailing list all have
> access to a reasonable mailer.
Correct. In fact, I *demand* that my list members have access to a
minimally reasonable mail system. I will, for instance, drop a member
simply because their site bounces to an address in the header rather
than following the envelope. Ultimately, we do the community a
disservice by coddling the mail systems that are broken in egregious
ways.
For minor forms of brokenness (e.g. no reply-to-group function), I
think they get to live with it. Given a choice of forcing 98% of the
people to type addresses for reply-to-sender or forcing 2% of the
people to type addresses for reply-to-group, I'll pick the latter.
> chip> o It penalizes the person with a reasonable mailer in order to
> chip> coddle those running brain-dead software.
>
> I would argue that penalization is small to zero
But you wouldn't convince me. :-) Breaking my "r" key is not a small
penalty. If it was, then the {#} tag lines, clever as they may be,
would be unnecessary.
> chip> o Your subscribers don't want you to do it.
>
> Disproof by counter-example, above.
Unfortunately, I suspect the people posting to comp.mail.elm asking for
a "reply-to-From-and-ignore-Reply-To" feature think Reply-To munging
is really groovy because they can reply with a single keystroke. If
somebody would take the time to teach them what the "g" key does, I
think they'd change their mind.
> My summary -- if it's what the members want and is done with care
> and caution, it works fine. I agree with Chip that in *most* cases,
> automatic `Reply-To: list' is a bad idea, but there are definately
> times when it is the right thing to do.
I believe your implementation of Reply-To munging is a lot less harmful
than the "strip out the old one, slap in a new one" that is performed
typically. It's clear you've thought about the problems, and that's my
main beef: people who munge without considering what it does.
Nonetheless, I'm kind of struck that you've gone through all this
effort just to help one poor woman stuck behind a brain dead X.400
gateway. She must be one special lady. :-) Personally, I'd be inclined
to tell her she was stuck typing in the address for her responses,
and teach everybody else how the reply-to-group function works in
their mailer.
> Chip, if you'd like to drop this onto your page as a comment I'd be
> honored.
Thanks. I am saving off whatever discussion results from this issue.
I would like to make some of that discussion available to people as
a companion to the note. (I will, of course, contact the authors
directly for permission before doing so.)
--
Chip Rosenthal Old men sing about their dreams. Women laugh and
Unicom Systems Development children scream. And the band keeps playin' on.
For a good time: http://www.unicom.com/john-hiatt/
PGP key: http://www.unicom.com/personal/chip.html
From list-managers-owner Fri Aug 18 22:30:06 1995
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Subject: Re: Appending "Reply-To" in Outgoing Mails
To: chip@unicom.com (Chip Rosenthal)
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 00:18:22 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199508190335.WAA05425@chinacat.unicom.com> from "Chip Rosenthal" at Aug 18, 95 10:35:08 pm
From: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Reply-To: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Organization: Schober O'Neal, Inc / Net Ads
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In the list I manage where we change the Reply-to field,
the group (about 20 at the time) was unanimous in desiring
this change. We have had moderate turnover in the couple
of years since then, with a total of 2 mis-sent private
messages, and no complaints of any sort about rewriting
Reply-to's.
Group responses outweigh personal responses by at least
20:1 on this list.
-Miles
meo@schoneal.com
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 19 06:30:05 1995
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Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 09:18:53 -0400 (EDT)
From: Fuzzy
To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
Subject: re: munging reply-to headers (digest V4 #154)
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On Fri, 18 Aug 1995 list-managers-digest-owner@GreatCircle.COM wrote:
> Received: from relay2.UU.NET (relay2.UU.NET [192.48.96.7]) by ASARian.org (8.6.10/8.6.12) with ESMTP id AAA08346 for ; Sat, 19 Aug 1995 00:04:03 -0400
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> Date: Fri, 18 Aug 1995 21:00:27 -0700
> Message-Id: <199508190400.VAA13075@miles.greatcircle.com>
> To: list-managers-digest@GreatCircle.COM
> Subject: List-Managers-Digest V4 #154
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>
>
we are using MD also, and are using 'reply-to: ' to make it
easier for list members to default to public replys. our headers
look something the above headers...
our users are using pine 3.91 and it asks, if there is a reply-to:,
if it should use the original from:, (private reply), or reply-to:,
(public reply). we find this works fine for our users. in fact they like
that the MUA asks them.
we are confused as why one would not want the choice?
Your Friend,
_____ __ __ ____ ____ __ __
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/ __/ / // / / /__ / /__\ /
(_/ (____/ ; Sat, 19 Aug 1995 08:11:14 -0700
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From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
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Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 17:09:34 +0200
Message-Id: <199508191509.12347.gjalp.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
To: fuzzy@asarian.org
CC: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-reply-to: (message from Fuzzy on Sat, 19 Aug 1995 09:18:53 -0400 (EDT))
Subject: re: munging reply-to headers (digest V4 #154)
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
[Fuzzy]
| our users are using pine 3.91 and it asks, if there is a
| reply-to:, if it should use the original from:, (private reply),
| or reply-to:, (public reply). we find this works fine for our
| users. in fact they like that the MUA asks them.
Argh! Don't you see that this goes against the intent of the Reply-To
header? Pine has been hacked to conform to the _broken_ behaviour of
many mailing lists.
A reasonable header should notice that the user's email address wasn't
in the To: or Cc: headers, and deduce that the mail is sent to mailing
list.. It can then ask the user if he wants a public (same To and Cc,
and From/Reply-To address in addition (in case the sender isn't on the
list)) or private reply (just From/Reply-To).
Why break what works perfectly by munging headers? Give intelligent
software a chance! There is _no_ excuse for the commercial providers
to offer their customers inferior interfaces. If they don't comply,
don't support them. It _is_ that simple. The providers _deserve_ irate
calls from their customers.
Kjetil T.
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 19 09:00:08 1995
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From: close@lunch.engr.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close)
Message-Id: <199508191551.IAA19589@lunch.engr.sgi.com>
Subject: Abuse of newsgroup space by a mailing list manager.
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 08:51:17 -0700 (PDT)
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This has to be one of the weirdest abuses of net resources I've seen by
a postmaster and system adiministrator. Basically nbi.com uses Usenet
newsgroups to try to contact ONE person whenever that person's e-mail
bounces from nbi.com mailing lists:
> From: leigh@nbi.com (Leigh Melton)
Newsgroups: rec.crafts.textiles.sewing
Subject: attn: RHYS88A@prodigy.com
Message-ID:
Date: Thu, 17 Aug 95 08:25:11 EDT
RHYS88A@prodigy.com has been unsubscribed from Sew-L.
You were unsubscribed AFTER your mail began to bounce because of "user
has decided not to accept Internet mail" errors began flooding in.
In future I hope you have the courtesy to unsubscribe from a mailing
list before you decide to not accept the mail which you ASKED to
receive.
* - - - - - - - - - - - *
| Leigh Melton |
| Postmaster |
| nbi.com |
| Atlanta, Georgia USA |
* - - - - - - - - - - - *
****************************************
I sent Mr. Melton e-mail objecting to just a waste of newsgroup bandwidth.
I, personally, run several mailing lists -- e-mail bounces all the time
and if I posted everytime it happened I'd be posting 10-20 times a day!
If every list owner who read rec.crafts.textiles.sewing did so too, the
group would quickly be overrun with "hey, your e-mail is bouncing"
messages. I asked Mr. Melton to deal with such issues privately and told
him the sewing newsgroup was not an appropriate place for such notices.
Mr. Melton forwarded my message to nbi.com's system administrator Joe
George. Mr. George wrote me basically (and rudely) saying that they'll
f*ing do what they want, that it's their policy at their site to notify
users unsubscribed from their lists due to faults with e-mail of the
situation using Usenet newsgroups, and that they'll damn well continue to
do so. Mr. George suggests if I, or anyone else, doesn't like this policy
to put nbi.com in the killfile.
I've put nbi.com in my killfile after seeing the first blatant waste
of newsgroup space. Do any other list managers agree with, or follow,
the same policy as nbi.com? I think this site has a ridiculous attitude
toward the Usenet newsgroups and their proper use, but am I out of touch
with the times (given all the spamming, etc. that goes on now) or am I
on target?
--
Diane Close
close@lunch.engr.sgi.com
I'm at lunch all day. :-)
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 19 11:00:09 1995
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
From: alan@znyx.com (Alan Deikman)
Subject: Re: Abuse of newsgroup space by a mailing list manager.
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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Diane Close writes:
>This has to be one of the weirdest abuses of net resources I've seen by
>a postmaster and system adiministrator. Basically nbi.com uses Usenet
>newsgroups to try to contact ONE person whenever that person's e-mail
>bounces from nbi.com mailing lists:
>I've put nbi.com in my killfile after seeing the first blatant waste
>of newsgroup space. Do any other list managers agree with, or follow,
>the same policy as nbi.com?
I'm afraid you have run into one of the side effects of the wild-west
anarchy of the Net in general. Yes, I agree with you that their attitude
needs some adjustment and if I were Master of the Universe I would cut
off the nbi.com site's access until they become more reasonable.
Hopefully, they will be ostracized by their peers.
On another tack, this just adds to my ongoing observation that the
USENET is has been fissioning into an overbloated, useless (USELESSNET?)
organisim with a noise-to-signal ratio that renders it virtually unusable
anyway. The only groups that I ever bother with any more are the
highly technical or the moderated groups.
USENET was bad enough when there were only a few tens of thousands of
contributors. Then, the biggest headache was when the fall semester
rolled around, which is when all the newbies got access and started
making their first clueless posts. Now, with commercial access on-line,
this happens ALL the time with thousands of times more lowest-common-
denominator type players.
So, as far as USEFUL forums go, moderated newsgroups or mailing lists
are about the only viable vehichle. USENET is going the way of CB.
--------------------------------
Alan Deikman, ZNYX Corporation
alan@znyx.com
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 19 11:30:35 1995
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To: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
From: Phil Wolff
Subject: GUI for list management
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
Precedence: bulk
Have you seen or used a GUI client for administering listserv or majordomo?
It would seem that almost all of the data, commands, feautres and scripts
could easily be manipulated through dialog boxes and other GUI controls. I'm
imagining a tool along the lines of a Eudora (interacting with POP3) or Free
Agent (with Usenet news) that would let me view current settings, scripts,
statistics, and subscribers and easily, directly change them.
________________________
Phil Wolff
philw@bdt.com
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 19 16:00:01 1995
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From: Joe George
Message-Id: <199508191854.OAA18081@twiglet.nbi.com>
Subject: Re: Abuse of newsgroup space by a mailing list manager. (fwd)
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 14:54:19 -0400 (EDT)
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Speaking as the mailing list manager in question, I feel a STRONG need to
clear the air over the policies that we implement here at nbi.com, and I
feel the need also to question why Ms. Close seems to have such a MAJOR bug
up her ass over this whole ordeal.
> >This has to be one of the weirdest abuses of net resources I've seen by
> >a postmaster and system adiministrator. Basically nbi.com uses Usenet
> >newsgroups to try to contact ONE person whenever that person's e-mail
> >bounces from nbi.com mailing lists:
>
> Hopefully, they will be ostracized by their peers.
NBI runs several mailing lists, and I, like any other MLM, deal with bounces
in any other manner. About once a month, a user drops off one of our lists
and we are unable to contact them to let them know why they have been
unsubscribed.
If there is no other recourse to contact these people, yes, we post a short
message to a Usenet newsgroup with the same general emphasis as the mailing
list in question.
As far as being "ostracized by our peers", perhaps a little scope should be
placed on this policy before anyone decides to start mailbombing us. The
ONE SINGLE post which seems to have crawled up Ms. Close's anatomy and died
was the FIRST AND ONLY such posting to her own pet newsgroup,
rec.crafts.textiles.sewing.
We send, on the average, one of these Usenet posts every FOUR TO SIX WEEKS.
I can count on my fingers the total number of these posts that have EVER
been made to Usenet. The postings average 1KB or less.
If this means that I should be "ostracized by my peers" then so be it, but
please make sure that you're a peer when you attempt to ostracize me. I pay
the bills for nbi.com's hardware and net access. People who run mailing
lists from their JOBS (like, for example, sgi.com, and I doubt sincerely
that Ms. Close pays for sgi's net access) need not complain to me about it.
Any futher questions on this policy may be sent to me, jgeorge@nbi.com (or
root@nbi.com) and I will listen to your opinions.
Flames, which are ever prevalent in Usenet and on this own list, will be
politely ignored.
Joe George
Systems Administrator, nbi.com
--
Joe George (jgeorge@nbi.com, jgeorge@crl.com) |Even I don't always
"Oh Bother," said Pooh, and quietly erased his hard disk.|agree with my own
|opinions. Nobody
(Please don't use 'jgeorge@twiglet.nbi.com' anymore.) |else does either.
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 19 16:01:47 1995
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From: Joe George
Message-Id: <199508191909.PAA18141@twiglet.nbi.com>
Subject: Abuse of newsgroup space by a mailing list manager. (fwd)
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 15:09:41 -0400 (EDT)
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> I sent Mr. Melton e-mail objecting to just a waste of newsgroup bandwidth.
> I, personally, run several mailing lists -- e-mail bounces all the time
> and if I posted everytime it happened I'd be posting 10-20 times a day!
> If every list owner who read rec.crafts.textiles.sewing did so too, the
> group would quickly be overrun with "hey, your e-mail is bouncing"
> messages. I asked Mr. Melton to deal with such issues privately and told
> him the sewing newsgroup was not an appropriate place for such notices.
Keep in mind, also, that we have informed you, several times, Ms. Close,
that this practice is not "business as usual" at NBI, but such a posting is
only made when it is impossible to contact that user in ANY other manner.
Your original suggestion to me, to "send them email", is useless when that
user can no longer receive Internet email (as is the case with this exact
example).
> Mr. George wrote me basically (and rudely) saying that they'll
> f*ing do what they want, that it's their policy at their site to notify
> users unsubscribed from their lists due to faults with e-mail of the
> situation using Usenet newsgroups, and that they'll damn well continue to
> do so. Mr. George suggests if I, or anyone else, doesn't like this policy
> to put nbi.com in the killfile.
Indeed I did. Once you start footing the bills for my systems and my net
access, then you'll be able to make the rules that govern these systems.
However, again, you completely and utterly missed my point when I said that
this was NOT a regular occurrence to post about EVERY bounce message we get.
Indeed, that is not practical and is indeed a large waste of Usenet
resources. I fail to see how ONE Usenet posting can be such a major waste
of Usenet resources. I assume that you come down on every MMF poster with
the same bile and hatred that you're reserving for me? They're an infinitely
larger waste of Usenet resources, and at least it can be argued that our
RARE Usenet postings can be to the benefit of at least one Usenet member.
Indeed, often several people benefit from these postings, since we do no
other advertising of our lists as a general rule, and from each of such
notices we've posted, at least several other people have inquired about our
lists as a result.
> I've put nbi.com in my killfile after seeing the first blatant waste
> of newsgroup space. Do any other list managers agree with, or follow,
> the same policy as nbi.com? I think this site has a ridiculous attitude
> toward the Usenet newsgroups and their proper use, but am I out of touch
> with the times (given all the spamming, etc. that goes on now) or am I
> on target?
I say you're out of touch with the times. We at NBI have been active in
Usenet for quite a long time, and we have taken an active role in the
creation of quite a number of newsgroups. I think my attitudes toward Usenet
in general (which are not relevant at all to your flaming) are quite
reasonable.
I fail to see how ONE posting to ONE newsgroup can be SERIOUSLY compared to
"spamming" Usenet.
If you have any idea how this ONE posting to ONE newsgroup can be considered
SPAMMING, I'd love to hear it.
Joe George
--
Joe George (jgeorge@nbi.com, jgeorge@crl.com) |Even I don't always
"Oh Bother," said Pooh, and quietly erased his hard disk.|agree with my own
|opinions. Nobody
(Please don't use 'jgeorge@twiglet.nbi.com' anymore.) |else does either.
From list-managers-owner Sat Aug 19 17:00:05 1995
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From: Chip Rosenthal
Message-Id: <199508192331.SAA11797@chinacat.unicom.com>
Subject: Re: munging reply-to headers (digest V4 #154)
To: fuzzy@asarian.org (Fuzzy)
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 1995 18:31:41 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: List-Managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: from "Fuzzy" at Aug 19, 95 09:18:53 am
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Fuzzy writes:
> our users are using pine 3.91 and it asks, if there is a reply-to:,
> if it should use the original from:, (private reply), or reply-to:,
> (public reply). we find this works fine for our users. in fact they like
> that the MUA asks them.
If you think that's cool, you ought to see what Pine will do if
you *stop* Reply-To munging. When a list reader strikes the R
key, the first thing Pine asks is "Reply to all recipients?"
Pretty slick, eh? It's a shame that Pine users on lists that munge
Reply-To can't take advantage of it.
--
Chip Rosenthal Old men sing about their dreams. Women laugh and
Unicom Systems Development children scream. And the band keeps playin' on.
For a good time: http://www.unicom.com/john-hiatt/
PGP key: http://www.unicom.com/personal/chip.html
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 20 10:00:01 1995
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Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 09:53:17 -0700
From: close@lunch.engr.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close)
Message-Id: <199508201653.JAA16961@lunch.engr.sgi.com>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
X-Also-Posted-To: news.admin.net-abuse.misc
Subject: Re: Not spam, but an abuse of net resources nonetheless.
References: <41512b$8lb@murrow.corp.sgi.com>
Organization: Definitely not organized. :-)
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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Joe George writes:
>close@lunch.engr.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) writes:
>
>>This isn't spam, but it simply has to be one of the weirdest abuses of net
>>resources I've seen by a postmaster and system adiministrator. Basically
>>nbi.com uses Usenet newsgroups to try to contact ONE person whenever that
>>person's e-mail bounces from nbi.com mailing lists:
>
>Being the accused net-abuser and baby-killer, before everyone else jumps on
>this bandwagon, I feel the need to indicate that Ms. Close is stating a VERY
>IMPORTANT falsehood to make her point.
>
> [snip] Ms. Close likes to imply that we do this
>dozens of times a day, but indeed we do not.
It was private e-mail from Mr. George, himself, that gave me impression
that this was a regular and frequent thing at nbi.com. I'll quote the
particular paragraph below, even though I strongly dislike posting any
portion of private e-mail to any newsgroup. However, since I'm accused of
being a liar, rather than merely being misinformed, I feel I'd like to
defend myself properly. Mr. George wrote to me stating:
As a general rule on our mailing lists -- one rule that I don't expect
you to be aware of, nor am I interested in your own personal opinions
of, BTW -- users who are unsubscribed from a list due to some major
fault with email delivery are notified in a Usenet newsgroup with the
same basic emphasis as the mailing list, in the likely event that
the user reads Usenet newsgroups with similar topics. I'm sorry if
you and your "royal We" don't like this policy, but it has worked
many times in other newsgroups to contact users who are unable to be
reached my email.
"As a general rule" says, to me, that it's done on a regular basis,
and the "it has worked many times" suggests that it's been done, a lot,
before. Are you saying, then, that it's only done in very "exceptional"
circumstances, and rarely? What determines these circumstances?
How often? What's your definition of "rare"?
>This user was no longer able to receive Internet email via Prodigy, so there
>was simply no other way to attemp to reach them, except post this short
>message in a newsgroup with a similar scope of interest.
How about trying postmaster@prodigy.com? I also suggested a "bounces"
mailing list, but Mr. George has indicated that this is not practical
at his site.
>I am sorry, but there is simply no way I can be convinced that ONE posting
>to ONE newsgroup, off topic or not, can really honestly be considered "net
>abuse."
If every list manager felt this way, the newsgroups would be very quickly
filled with "your mail is bouncing" messages ad infinitum.
>If anyone other than Ms. Close thinks so, I'd love to hear your reasoning.
Yes, please do write or post!
--
Diane Close
close@lunch.engr.sgi.com
I'm at lunch all day. :-)
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 20 18:00:03 1995
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To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Not spam, but an abuse of net resources nonetheless.
In-Reply-To: <199508201653.JAA16961@lunch.engr.sgi.com>
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 17:36:54 -0700
From: Michelle Dick
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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You wrote:
> If every list manager felt this way, the newsgroups would be very quickly
> filled with "your mail is bouncing" messages ad infinitum.
Indeed! There are mailing lists out there with 100K subscribers!
Imagine how much bouncing mail they have! Even I, with a "mere" 2K
subscribers get hundreds of bounces per week and about 1-3 addresses
are removed from my list each week. Imagine if I posted about all of
those! Ugh.
I'm in the process of rewriting the FAQ for a newsgroup and am putting
in netiquette guides (such as "advertisements are generally considered
unwelcome in this group"), this example makes me think it wise to put
in blurb about the above cited example of off-topic posting before it
truely becomes a problem. One ad, private post (which is what these
bounce notices are), or other off-topic post in a newsgroup per month
or two is not a big deal, however given the growth of usenet
readership and propensity for copy-cat activity this could easily
become a problem. Better to say at the outset that such off-topic
postings are generally considered unwelcome. This may very well go
into the revised newsgroup FAQ.
If someone who is bounced from a list *really* wants back on, they
will find a way to contact the list-owner. Happens to me all the
time. ("hey, Michelle, I like changed addresses, but my mail was
forwarded and so I forgot to update you, but now I haven't gotten any
FATFREE mail in 5 days, maybe my forwarding stopped, did you bump me
or something? can I get back on?"). If they care so little about the
list that they don't even notice they are not longer getting list
mail, why bother to try to contact them by posting an off-topic post
to a newsgroup read by tens or hundreds of thousands of people who
have no interest in reading about that bounce announcement?
If the user reads the textile group and really wants to be on the
mailing list, I think they are capable of posting to the group asking
about the wherabouts of the mailing list if they can't find the
list or list owner's address.
--
Michelle Dick artemis@rahul.net East Palo Alto, CA
Owner, FATFREE Vegetarian Mailing List
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 20 18:30:01 1995
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To: Joe George
From: amys@iquest.net (Amy Stinson)
Subject: Re: Abuse of newsgroup space by a mailing list manager. (fwd)
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
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Dear Mr. George,
You said:
>Speaking as the mailing list manager in question, I feel a STRONG need to
>clear the air over the policies that we implement here at nbi.com, and I
>feel the need also to question why Ms. Close seems to have such a MAJOR bug
>up her ass over this whole ordeal.
The problem is if you give others the idea that this is an acceptable way to
conduct list administration business then the newgroups will truely become
useless.
If people pay to be on one of your lists, then you should keep a database of
names, addresses, and phone numbers to be able to contact them by other
means as there is money involved. Otherwise unsubscribe them and forget it.
If I have a user from an online service who's mail has bounced, then I
generally have a "contact" person from that service to see if they can
contact my bouncing subscribers from within the service. If they can't,
then they are unsubscribed. I don't sweat it. I've actually called
subscribers when mail is bounced (even tho I don't charge for my list) to
see if I can help resolve a problem.
>
>If there is no other recourse to contact these people, yes, we post a short
>message to a Usenet newsgroup with the same general emphasis as the mailing
>list in question.
Has this worked? Or is it just a way to let off steam?
>As far as being "ostracized by our peers", perhaps a little scope should be
>placed on this policy before anyone decides to start mailbombing us. The
>ONE SINGLE post which seems to have crawled up Ms. Close's anatomy and died
>was the FIRST AND ONLY such posting to her own pet newsgroup,
>rec.crafts.textiles.sewing.
Nah, she was offended by your arrogant attitude and perhaps mystified by
your lack of being able to see the "big picture" in all this. They probably
aren't reading newsgroups if they aren't on the service they subscribed
from. So in essence, you are sort of airing your undies for all of us to
have to deal with, and we don't really want to put up with it. It's bad
enough to have to deal with all of the other people who have discovered the
internet after 1 week of owning a computer, much less dealing with people
who OUGHT TO KNOW BETTER, but think they should be excused because that's
how they feel like dealing with stuff.
After all, it's people with attitudes like yours that sometimes make the
thought of government regulation attractive.
It's really pretty sad. Some people seem to have their heads so far up
their own hineys that the only way they realize that their actions should be
more self-governed is to be clamped on hard. The only way that's
effectively accomplished on the net is to wham you with so much mail that
your server ab-ends.
> I pay the bills for nbi.com's hardware and net access.
I find this comment rather interesting in that there seems to be an air of
justification in the perceived level tolerance we should have for you to
conduct business. Is this your personal service that you've gotten that
you're paying $1000 per month for? I don't get it, lots of us pay for
internet access and don't feel like we're any more entitled to use or abuse
services.
I, for one, think Ms. Close's perception of you was right on target.
Amy Stinson
Amy Stinson *** amys@iquest.net -coListowner Mknit
To subscribe to MKNIT send email to Majordomo@ancor.com
In the body put: Subscrib mknit or Subscribe mknit-digest
Personal Page: http://www.iquest.net/~amys/
Phone (317)889-1721 H (317)885-6589 B (317)885-1741 data/fax
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 20 20:00:01 1995
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Message-Id: <199508210233.VAA08472@schoneal.com>
Subject: Re: Not spam, but an abuse of net resources nonetheless.
To: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 21:33:08 -0500 (CDT)
In-Reply-To:
X-YZZY: I hate hand-tweaking replies, like I had to do here!
From: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Reply-To: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Organization: Schober O'Neal, Inc / Net Ads
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Michelle Dick said...
|
|I'm in the process of rewriting the FAQ for a newsgroup and am putting
|in netiquette guides (such as "advertisements are generally considered
|unwelcome in this group"), this example makes me think it wise to put
|in blurb about the above cited example of off-topic posting before it
|truely becomes a problem.
I agree wholeheartedly.
|If someone who is bounced from a list *really* wants back on, they
|will find a way to contact the list-owner. Happens to me all the
|time.
Ditto again. If they are clueful enough to get news, they are clueful
enough to find their way back. If not, well, maybe they aren't ready
for the net yet. I hate to be snotty about that, but it's kind of like
I feel about drivers. If they can't figure out how to get in the proper
lane ahead of time for a turn, they don't belong on the road.
-Miles
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 20 20:02:49 1995
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Message-Id: <199508210242.VAA08519@schoneal.com>
Subject: Re: Abuse of newsgroup space by a mailing list mangler
To: amys@iquest.net (Amy Stinson)
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 21:42:51 -0500 (CDT)
Cc: jgeorge@nbi.com, list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: from "Amy Stinson" at Aug 20, 95 08:23:00 pm
From: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Reply-To: meo@schoneal.com (Miles O'Neal)
Organization: Schober O'Neal, Inc / Net Ads
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Amy Stinson said...
|[actually, Joe George said this part]
|> I pay the bills for nbi.com's hardware and net access.
In the words of annoying caller from my switchboard days,
"well, bully rah rah!!!"
|I find this comment rather interesting in that there seems to be an air of
|justification in the perceived level tolerance we should have for you to
|conduct business. Is this your personal service that you've gotten that
|you're paying $1000 per month for? I don't get it, lots of us pay for
|internet access and don't feel like we're any more entitled to use or abuse
|services.
In fact, I pay for Schober O'Neal's, and I pay dearly
at the moment for the ISDN. I don't think that entitles me
to treat the net as my litterbox, but I do think it entitles
me to reasonable newsgroups more than it entitles someone
else to poop all over it.
I run a mailing list that was specifically created to offload
tangents from a newsgroup. It's directly related to the
newsgroup, and neither I nor any of the members have *ever*
bothered the group with details such as Mr. George seems to
feel are his divine/constitutional/whatever rights to annoy
people with.
Not only that, but when I recently went brain-dead and posted
something I shouldn't have to a list, I posted a public apology
on the list rather than defend my right to be a jerk (which a
number of emailed responses assumed I was, so they replied in
"kind" - I still was polite and apologized again - I had peed
on their doorstep - something someone here seems to just not
get!)
-Miles
From list-managers-owner Sun Aug 20 20:30:02 1995
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From: jeffw@triple-i.com (Jeff Wasilko)
Message-Id: <9508210305.AA18027@siesta>
Subject: Re: Not spam, but an abuse of net resources nonetheless.
To: close@lunch.engr.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close)
Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 20:05:50 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: list-managers@GreatCircle.COM
In-Reply-To: <199508201653.JAA16961@lunch.engr.sgi.com> from "Diane Barlow Close" at Aug 20, 95 09:53:17 am
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Diane Barlow Close writes:
> >If anyone other than Ms. Close thinks so, I'd love to hear your reasoning.
>
> Yes, please do write or post!
I agree that it leans towards abuse of usenet. It's aleady taking
such a strong beating from those who don't seem to know better (or
don't care, like the Prodigy sex spammer), that we don't need
those who should know better (like list managers and postmasters)
abusing it.
If someone _really_ wants to get back on the list, they'll find a
way. Don't you ask them to save the 'welcome' message that tells
them how to subscribe and unsubscribe?
BTW, Wener Uhrig posted a very well written post regarding this
subject to the net-abuse newsgroup....
Jeff
--
Jeff Wasilko, Systems Rep., Information International Inc. +1 617 937 9400
(jeffw@triple-i.com, jeffw@jane.camex.com)
"I'll be youah race-cah drivah..." -- Jewel
"Pahrk youah race-cah in Havahad Yahd?" -- Anja [smoe]
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 21 01:01:41 1995
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From: Kjetil Torgrim Homme
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Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 09:52:06 +0200
Message-Id: <199508210752.8843.gjalp.ifi.uio.no@ifi.uio.no>
To: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: ListProcessor 6.0a
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Behold these headers from a list I just joined: (sans Received-by)
| From xforms@imageek.york.cuny.edu Mon Aug 21 09:42:01 1995
| Return-Path:
| Date: Sun, 20 Aug 1995 22:06:34 -0400
| Message-Id: <199508201134.NAA02258@skeletor.ruhr.sub.org>
| Errors-To: geek@imageek.york.cuny.edu
| Reply-To: xforms@imageek.york.cuny.edu
| Originator: xforms@imageek.york.cuny.edu
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| Precedence: bulk
| From: Markus Korth
| To: kjetilho@ifi.uio.no
| Subject: Read Colormap
| X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0a -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas
The envelope is wrong, Return-Path is wrong, Reply-To is munged, To is
wrong. If Errors-To isn't heeded[1], bounces will go to
the list!
Before I ask the List manager to get this fixed, I'd like to know if
ListProcessor 6.0a can be configured to behave, or if he must install
new software.
Another thing about ListProcessor is that it thinks envelope address
is God, and refuses to add addresses other than what appears in the
envelope, and refuses submissions which has an envelope address
different from the subscription address. It isn't _wrong_ to do so,
this is merely a small nuisance.
Kjetil T.
[1] I can only find mention of it tht keyword in rfc-1035, which isn't
about e-mail.
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 21 01:06:22 1995
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Date: Sun, 20 Aug 95 23:06:09 EDT (0306Z)
From: "CPT Larry J. Schauer"
To: Joe George
cc: list-managers@greatcircle.com
Subject: Re: Abuse of newsgroup space by a mailing list manager. (fwd)
Sender: list-managers-owner@GreatCircle.COM
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I thought this was interesting, especially the method of using USENET
news to notify subscribers. Personally, when mail starts bouncing
to a member, I usually just unsubscribe them (and hope the unsub msg
will get to them, but knowing that it probably won't). Sometimes,
based on the error, I'll remove the user from ALL the lists at my site
(to save the other list owners the hassle). Is it wrong to do this (in
general)? I.e. do we, as list managers, OWE our users notification
when they drop from lists?
I think the problem is compounded by not having another reference
to each user (besides e-mail). For example, if we had a phone number,
we could call them (Hey, your mail's bouncing!). Unfortunately, in
most cases this isn't possible.
>If there is no other recourse to contact these people, yes, we post a short
>message to a Usenet newsgroup with the same general emphasis as the mailing
>list in question.
While this is a UNIQUE way of contacting users, it is not a SMART way.
First, there's NO guarantee that the user even reads USENET news, let
alone that particular newsgroup. For example, I'm subscribed to quite
a few mailing lists, but I don't read USENET. Second, posting a msg
to USENET that is destined for one user is a waste of B/W. It's the
same as me posting a msg saying "Hey Bob, how about a game of golf
this Thurs?".
As a side note, a few of us tried to get a USENET feed recently. We
were told that Army regs prohibit USENET feeds from travelling across
the MILNET (our network). Although I'm not sure how true this is, it's
the story we got. And this is a shame, for although USENET news has
a lot of noise it in, there's still a lot of GOOD STUFF.
>We send, on the average, one of these Usenet posts every FOUR TO SIX WEEKS.
>I can count on my fingers the total number of these posts that have EVER
>been made to Usenet. The postings average 1KB or less.
To me this is irrelevant. The key is the tradition it starts. If it
becomes accepted for one group to do this, then others will follow. And
then USENET will become a gigantic personal e-mail relay. In order to
prevent this from happening, we need to police ourselves. That's
what made the Internet what it is today---people agreeing to a "standard"
of behavior.
>
>If this means that I should be "ostracized by my peers" then so be it, but
>please make sure that you're a peer when you attempt to ostracize me. I pay
I'm the sysadmin for 6 mailing lists and the owner of 3 of them.
>the bills for nbi.com's hardware and net access. People who run mailing
>lists from their JOBS (like, for example, sgi.com, and I doubt sincerely
>that Ms. Close pays for sgi's net access) need not complain to me about it.
>
This is also irrelevant. Since I don't directly pay for my network access,
are you saying that I don't have a duty to protect the Govt's money?
To me it's like saying to someone "Don't tell me to conserve water unless
YOU'RE paying for it, cuz I'M paying for it". Resources are resources,
and money is money.
Larry Schauer
From list-managers-owner Mon Aug 21 02:31:01 1995
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